When to Bicker
by ShiniJekka
Summary: Jessica and Kyle help out a small town as a happy couple.. except they're fighting all the time.
1. The Winding Road

A lone swordsman walked down a dusty road, sun beating down on his dark hair, furthering his magnificent tan and raising a slight sheen of sweat to finely toned muscles. His footsteps rang loud in his ears, a single sound amidst the otherwise calm and serene morning, one man on one road, walking toward an unknown destiny. 

Thud, thud, thud, thud.

Left, right, left... occasionally his scabbard, the Insane Sword safely nestled inside, would thwack against his left thigh with a satisfying weight.

Thud, thud, thwack, thud.

It was an almost sort of melody, he thought with an easy grin, breathing in the morning.

Thud, thud, thud, thwack.

"KYLE!!!!"  
The lone swordsman paused, squinty eyes rapidly issuing forth a blink. That wasn't part of the rhythm.. in fact, that almost sounded like..

"KYLE! DAMNIT, Kyle! Where are you going?"

.. almost sounded like...

The not-so-lone swordsman turned around, crossing his arms over his chest sternly, fighting to stop the lupine grin that slid across his lips.

"Hey, Jess."

The diminutive priestess of Althena skidded to a stop a few feet from him, long robes swaying and then settling around her tiny frame as she struggled to regain her breath, having run after him down that long stretch of road. Kyle's eyes involuntarily trailed up and down, some inner part of them lighting up with affection.

Hers were lit up with something different altogether. "Don't you Hey Jess me, you foul smelling delinquent!" she shot, one hand resting on a slim hip while the other adjusted her hood. "I asked where you were off to! It's two hours before we were supposed to start looking around and we AGREED last NIGHT that NO ONE was going anywhere alone!"

This time he couldn't stop the grin, and let it take up residence. Jessica was so upset that her hood was falling back, her pointy ears were turning red amid her whiteblond hair, and her fangs were showing. 

Goddess, did he love this woman.

"Sure we did," he answered finally, noting that she was starting to fume. "It's just that you looked so nice and comfortable while you were oversleeping."

"OVERsleeping?! We still have two hours!!"

"With the amount of time you take to get ready in the morning?" he muttered quietly. Not quietly enough, he noticed, as her ears perked slightly and her blue eyes narrowed.

"I heard that, Kyle." Jessica tugged her hood back into place, mindful of bright sun and her own pale skin. "If you wanted to leave me behind then you should have done so back in Meribia." She paused, and then grinned. "Not that I'd have LET you."

"HA! Like you could have stopped me," Kyle barked, way before he thought about it.

Oooh gods. He knew that look.

Jess clenched her hands into fists, and then relaxed them, a nasty look flitting through her eyes, and then she was all smiles.

"Absolutely, Kyle. I'd almost forgotten that you're perfectly capable of living on your own and surviving without the help of any sort of female types," she declared, straightening her posture as though a metal rod found its way into her spine. "So capable, in fact, that you managed to completely burn supper three nights in a row, got lost twice, and WHO was the one so seasick he couldn't even remember his own name?"  
"I'm a thief, not a sailor!" he defended.

"Yes, I know," Jess cut in. "Such a shame you never got into an honest profession. Maybe some sense of morals might have worked their way into that thick thief skull."

"I've got morals," Kyle grumbled.

"And not even a very GOOD thief!" Jess continued.

Kyle's eyes widened. He was all for a hearty argument (hell, some days he wondered if their relationship was built on screaming at each other), but calling his thieving skills into doubt was just one tiny step over the line so far as he was concerned. He'd STARTED the Nanza borderguards, and kept it running in good shape with the protection racket for as long as he'd been using a sword. He'd have to speak up, now.

"If I'm such a bad thief, then why are you missing three pairs of undergarments?"

Jessica opened her mouth to retort just as what he said seemed to unfold in her brain. Her eyes widened, stunned, and Kyle could practically see the calculations running around behind them.

The aforementioned filched panties were, of course, in his bag. It was a naughty impulse that he just couldn't pass up.

"You... you... you..." 

Kyle sighed, getting comfortable and shielding his eyes from the sun with a large, callused hand. If she was already at the stuttering stage, this screaming lecture was going to take a while...

Luldorrin was a tiny village, one of the new ones that had sprung up in the few years following the defeat of Ghaleon, to accommodate a sudden baby boom and all of the young lovers responsible for such. It was also, according to rumor, experiencing a sudden rash of disappearances. A few townsfolk had appealed to Jessica's father, the world-renowned Master Mel (or Hell Mel, as he liked to hear) of the nearby port city Meribia, to investigate. Mel, already up to his pointy ears in Wannabe-Ghaleon-Copycats (all of whom were almost comically inept, but in rather high numbers, and with Vane having the same problems, all of the usual heroes were a bit busy), had sent his feisty daughter and her rogue-ish boyfriend (who admittedly was scared to death of Hell Mel, and what those freakishly muscular arms could do to his handsome young studbody, thus making maidens everywhere weep, and probably making Jessica gloat like crazy) to look into it.

So far they weren't doing too well.

"What the hell is all this talk gonna do, Jess? The people here don't know anything or they'd have already CAUGHT the guy!" Kyle reached for the hem of the rapidly walking priestess's robes, but she somehow, without even looking, twitched her hips in such a manner that the cloth escaped his grasp.

"Just because they haven't figured anything out," she called over her shoulder, "doesn't mean they haven't seen clues. If we talk to enough people who've seen different things, then we might gather enough from everyone to piece it together ourselves."

"That'll take too long," he grumbled under his breath, taking advantage of his longer stride to catch up to her. "If you really think this interrogation thing is our best bet, then we'd be better off splitting up."

"And why is that?" Jessica quipped, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes.

"7 people in 10 days. Seems a little fast for my liking. We'll cover more ground that way, and taking our time would probably just doom a couple more people to .. to whatever's going on here." He glanced over, wondering if she was gonna mock him.

"Not bad, Kyle," she admitted, heading for the inn they'd agreed to stay at while in town. "Nice to see you using the muscles in your head for a change."

"I can be clever when I want to," Kyle groused. 

"Picking up girls," Jessica agreed.

"Worked with you." He grinned. She shot him a scathing glare but didn't say anything back. 

Inwardly, Kyle cheered. Last year she'd have denied liking him, smacked him upside the head, and stormed off. Now he warranted a glare.

Things were looking up.

Things were going miserably.

At first, Jessica had been completely thrilled that her father had sent her to investigate the occurrences of Luldorrin, especially with his inexplicable overprotectiveness as of late. Hadn't she proven her independence and self-sufficiency to him yet? What did she have to do, reincarnate Ghaleon and beat the bastard a second time?  
All of that aside, she was thrilled. Then, he tacked Kyle onto the roster.

Less than thrilled, and yet at the same time, almost giddy at the notion. Maybe a little roadtrip together would bring the two closer, since they were still at about two fights a week (minimal compared to the old days, but tiresome nonetheless). THEN Kyle tries to sneak off without her, and managed to completely piss her off when she caught up with him, and then they split up (independence, yay, no Kyle, boo!), and FINALLY...

She sighed quietly, resting her elbows on the rough, beerstained table in front of her. And finally she'd ended up mingling with the locals in a small, smelly, tavern that had been tucked away in the seedier portion of a small and relatively unseedy town. Apparently a seedy portion containing a small smelly tavern was a prerequisite for being your own town. At the moment most of the young men in the place were loudly singing about some sort of large breasted neighbor, and she didn't feel up to risking their halitosis after the kind of day she'd already had. Kyle was probably living it up, being treated like the bandit king he was, or he'd wandered into a lush hotel, or he'd (this being the most likely) wandered into a brothel and had women hanging off of him.

Jessica could actually feel her hackles rise, despite being alone and this only being her imagination, and her lack of hackles. It would be just like that brainless dolt to forget why they were here and get saturated with alcohol and surrounded by women and then he'd forget about her and probably impregnate some backwater hussy and then she'd be left all alone to figure this stupid disappearance out.

"Left all alone?" a soft, masculine sounding voice offered from over her shoulder. Jessica harumphed. That was it exactly, left all alone to figure this stupid disa-..

She blinked, blue gaze flicking to the glass of water suspended near the side of her face, and the slight, slimfingered handing holding it there, up the arm and to the man standing directly behind her.

He was probably about five inches taller than her, but well shorter than Kyle, and so thin she might have considered calling him a waif and looking into his dietary habits. He had tousled, careless black hair, eyes of a curious bland yellow, and a long, thin face, pronounced by prominent cheekbones and a scar running from the side of his right eye down to his chin. Faded, dark and expressionless clothing hung loosely from his gaunt frame. 

"I beg your pardon," she asked, the once-over taking no more than a moment.

"I had asked if you'd been left all alone," the man repeated, still holding the water. "It certainly seems that way."

"Yes, well.." Jessica ran a list of replies through her head, shaking her head at the glass of water. "I wouldn't say left so much as 'temporarily on my own', thank you."

"Perspective is a tricky thing." He set the glass down on her table and she watched as his eyes trailed downward. "So what's a priestess of Althena doing in town?"  
"Sitting at a table in a bar," she answered, as though it were obvious.

"What brings you here?" he countered.

"Truth," she admitted. He tilted his head to the side.

"Investigating?"

Jess nodded. The man seemed to relax a bit, then brighten, and held one of his thin hands out to her.

"As am I. My name is Len. Len Destine."

"Jessica de Alkirk," she offered, taking his hand in hers and giving it a brief shake. Before she had the chance to pull it away, he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a cool, soft kiss there, and then let it go.

She rested it on her lap, making a mental note to wash it later, and immediately after wondered why she was being so mean. She gave him a bright smile to make up for it somehow.

"My partner and I just arrived yesterday. How long have you been at this?"  
"Oh, for quite some time," Len murmured. Jessica raised a light eyebrow. 

"Really? I thought it had only been going on for a week and a half."

"Yes, of course." He glanced at a seat adjoined to her table, and she quickly nodded her permission. A slight creak resounded as he pulled the chair out and sat on it, leaning forward slightly. "My sister's roommate was the first to disappear, and she called me to see if I could help, since I am a bit of a ..." He smiled, a thin, sickly thing that seemed to suffer for lack of sunlight. At the bar, the noise level rose a few notches as two inebriated fellows started to argue over the correct lyrics to verse 27 of The Next-door Vixen.

"Bit of a ..?" Jessica prompted, ignoring the raucous.

"Magician," Len admitted. "I studied in Vane, before.. well, you know."

Boy, did she ever. Jess just nodded, not really up to mentioning that she was on the magical city when it was blasted from the sky. "And you've been investigating ever since?"  
"I only intended to poke around," he sighed, "but after two days of not really trying, my sister disappeared as well. Since then, I've been serious about this."

"I can imagine," the priestess murmured. "How many have gone missing up to date?"

"Eight, all relatively unconnected, leaving behind nothing but a messy home and a bunch of questions. To be honest," Len added, cocking his head to the side, "I'm glad there are higher ranked people looking into this. I'm stumped."

"I don't have much rank," Jess interjected, "but maybe three heads can uncover more than just one."

"Where is your.. partner? Not too far off, I hope." His eyes gleamed oddly as the tavern door swung open and the torch on the outside wall cast a new luminary source, and Jessica tried hard not to think of their unique color as 'urine'.

"He better not be," she grumbled, looking up as the small argument at the bar caused a bottle to launch itself across the room.

"Oh, wonderful," Len noted dryly. "A bar fight. This always accomplishes a lot."

"Lots of drunkards in one room ends up this way a lot." Jessica winced in sympathy as someone got their head knocked onto the bartop. 

"Liqueur," Len sneered. "Horrible stuff. Look what it does to otherwise fine people."

That was such the Anti-Kyle statement that Jessica almost wanted to write it down to rub in his face later. Look, Kyle! A man who doesn't NEED to drink to have a good time! 

Then she doubted if this thin and pale fellow had ever really had a good time in his life.

"Watch it!" 

Jess ducked just in time to avoid a bottle, but it crashed into the wall next to her and a bit of shrapnel skimmed across the top of her hand. "Maniacs," she muttered, pulling her hood over her head and face and getting to her feet. "Let's go outside."

"Agreed." Len rested his hand on her shoulder and the two wove through the surging bodies toward the door.

Cooler night air washed over Jessica as they stepped outside, and she took a grateful breath in, not realizing how stuffy it was in there until now.

"You're bleeding," her acquaintance breathed, eyes locked on the small line of beaded scarlet on her hand.

"Oh, it's nothing." She pulled a light green silken scarf out of a pocket and tied it loosely around the cut. "I'll heal it up later."

"Shame to ruin a scarf."

She just shrugged. It was old, and hardly her favorite. That honor befell a colorful bolt of silk, as slippish and lively as a waterfall, that Luna had given her for the last Midsummer festival. The older green fabric was more of a glorified handkerchief anyway.

"Well," she began, deciding that she ought to go find Kyle soon and drag him out of whatever den of depravity he'd fallen into as of late, "I'd better get going."

"Indeed," Len intoned with a slightly bow. "Your friend is waiting somewhere. We shall probably run into each other, all three perhaps, at a later time."

"Yeah, probably." Jess nodded to him a last time, and started off toward the hotel.

"Yeah.." Len echoed, rooted at the entrance of the bar, colorless eyes following her shape as she walked off into the dark, his fingers caressing the hand which had held hers. 

"Probably."


	2. Different kinds of men

Kyle made sure the slaphappy grin had been completely wiped off his face before he pushed open the door to the room that he and Jess had been sharing. It was quaint, to be sure, but suited their needs with a bathroom, ample windows, and (most importantly, to her) two separate beds. He could tell by the light on inside and the faint fragrance of something similar to ginger that the priestess had already returned, and he also had a fair idea of what she thought he must have been up to during the day.

Which was more or less false. Kyle really had been serious about his part in this investigation, and thusly had only been sidetracked by women and beer about three times. All in all, he was fairly proud of himself.

Serious Face securely positioned, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The windows were cracked open, forming a breeze through the room that made the room seem a bit chilly to him, but probably seemed comfortable for anyone raised on a seaport. The beds, he noticed, had subtly been pushed a bit farther apart, and a chair was moved toward the main window, whereupon he spotted Jessica leaning forward and gazing out into the town.

"Hey, Jess!" Kyle unlatched his sword and propped it by his bed, sitting down on the moderately soft cushion. "This is a pretty small town, luckily everyone lines up for the chance to tell my handsome self everything they know." He raised an eyebrow at her back, waiting for the snort of derision.  
And met with nothing. He raised the other eyebrow to join its twin in an expression of surprise, and tried again. "A lot of the women here have loose tongues, if you know what I mean."

"Mmhmn." 

He blinked. No way could she miss that innuendo. "Hey, Jessica, I'm the most intelligent person this side of the Frontier."

"Okay."

"Whoa, whoa... that's it." He stood up, walking over to her chair and leaning to the side, interposing himself into her field of vision. Jessica blinked once, and focused her otherwise distant gaze on the arm directly in front of her face. Jolting the chair backward, she looked up.

"Oh. Kyle. Hi." She looked to either side, cheeks starting to pinken with slight embarrassment. "How'd it go?"  
"Oh, not too bad at all," he answered, casually leaning against the wall. "Just like I told you, two minutes ago."

She colored further. "I wasn't paying attention."

"I noticed. What's on your mind?" He watched her face carefully. It wasn't good at all, that she was so inattentive. They were strangers in a town with trouble, and she should know better. Maybe it was a good thing he'd come along, after all.

"Just.. you know. Disappearances. Thinking about what could have happened." She risked a glance up at him. 

Nope. Not believing a word of it. Jessica gritted her teeth in slight frustration, and blurted at him, "Priestess stuff, alright?!"

Kyle threw his head back and laughed, loudly. Priestess stuff was her old excuse, when she got caught lost in thought and didn't want to admit anything to him. He found it hilarious that she still used it, all these years later.

Unfortunately, laughing at her might not have been the best reaction. She pushed the chair backward further and got to her feet, hands planting themselves on her hips, and glared upward at him.

"What are you laughing at, you pigheaded ape?"

"Oh, nothing," he snickered, covering his mouth with a large hand. "Just.. you know.. priestess stuff!" Louder laughter ensued.

Jessica was a pleasant shade of vermilion by now, a stark contrast to the pale hair tucked loosely behind her ears. "You laugh at me and then you MOCK me?!" she demanded. "What the hell do you care, anyway? You wouldn't know a deep thought if it reared up and bit you in the ass! Anything without big breasts and a low alcohol content is too complex for you, right? Why don't you just go back to your stupid seedy taverns and brothels and let ME figure this stupid case out! You can't even multiply!"

"I can too!" Kyle insisted. "I just don't need to! I'm a goddamn bandit!"

"You're a goddamn MORON!"

"Who the hell asked you?!"

"Who the hell needs you?!"

"Apparently your father thinks YOU do," Kyle yelled. Jessica bared her teeth, lifted her robes slightly, and kicked him in the shins. Kyle yowled, grabbing his leg (which would surely have a bruise later) and hopping up and down on the other. "What'd I say?!"

"What'd you... what did you SAY?!" Jess threw her hands into the air. "BOTH of you! Aargh! You think I can't handle things by myself just because I'm a woman, right? I can handle myself just fine! I don't NEED you!"

"The hell you don't," Kyle muttered, sitting down on the chair she'd jumped off of. "Just a few minutes ago anyone could have sneaked in here and dragged you off."

"Nonsense," she sniffed. "I was thinking, not in a coma."

"You're always 'thinking', and you're never watching."

"You're never thinking at all, so shut up."

"Fine," Kyle growled, jerking the chair so that his back was to her. "This conversation is over."

"Fine!" Jessica agreed, shoving her bed almost into the corner. "It's over!"

"Fine with me!" he snapped. He could hear her grumbling, and then a drawer pushed shut, followed by footsteps to the bathroom and a door slamming. He glanced out the window and realized how late it really was.

Bedtime, huh? Damn. He knew what a mistake it could be to let her go to sleep angry. Standing up in a fluid motion, he turned the chair around quietly and sat back down, looking over the room while waiting for her to come out of the bathroom.

She couldn't have been home all that long. Her overcloak was tossed onto the floor, and she usually hung it up after a few minutes, after she got settled in a new room. Her shoes were by the window, not lined up near her bed. He could see her flail peeking out from under one of her pillows, and had to smile. At least she was somewhat prepared.

Folded on the desk was a slightly soiled green scarf. He thought he recognized it, somewhat, but then again, Jessica had a lot of scarves.

Damn, he realized with a grin, I know her habits like the back of my hand.

Now if only he could figure out her moodswings...

"That stupid, chauvinistic, thickheaded, loosetongued sorry excuse for a hero," Jessica growled under her breath, yanking the uppermost robes off and stripping down to her simple shift, kicking the bundle of clothing around the room for a bit to satisfy her temper. Bad enough she hadn't even seen or heard him come in, then she let him maneuver her into another argument. As fun as they were, and as much as he infuriated her, each time this happened Jessica could feel a happy future together get further and further away.

She sighed softly, picking up the robes and gently folding them into neat piles. She and Kyle, maybe they weren't really meant for the domestic and peaceful sort of life. It took disaster and danger to bring them back together.. (not to mention a dragonmaster and a goddess), and the small amount of relieved vacation seemed to have brought them back to each others' throats.

"He makes it so damn hard to love him," Jess told the slightly dirty mirror. Her reflection didn't offer much response. Her memory, however...

They'd all gotten together again, one year after it was all over. They being, of course, that sorry lot of heroes risen to strike back against the Magic Emperor. A sort of celebration, catching up on each other, a merry little party amidst the rising city of New Vane. Mia and Jessica and Luna had talked and danced while Nash ran around, still fixing up details under the eye of Lemia, Nall begged some fish off of the cooks, and Alex and Kyle mainly sat in a corner with a bottle of sake and discussed manly things.

Manly things. Like priestess stuff, Jess imagined. Only more manly.

She had asked Luna what she thought about marriage in general.. if she and Alex had set a date yet, what sort of wedding they wanted. The bluehaired woman had laughed and blushed, stating the date of Midsummer and her choice of a traditional ceremony. Jessica offered her services as a priestess of Althena. Mia had giggled, and asked if there was a higher authority than Althena herself to do marriages. Luna blushed more and said she'd be thrilled to have Jessica take part in it, and Mia as well, and how were they faring with their gentlemen?

Mia smiled nervously, looking over to where the slight, poofy-haired mage was directing a herd of new students to the guildhall. "Eventually," she admitted in a soft, shy voice, "eventually I want to marry him. I want children. His children." A pink blush spread over her cheeks. Luna smiled brightly and hugged her. 

"That's beautiful, Mia. I hope it works out, and soon!" Those blue eyes turned to Jess, who had quieted down at the subject. "Jessica?" Luna prompted.

"He can be such a jerk!" Jess blurted, ears twitching and fists clenching before she glanced around and quickly lowered her voice. "Sorry, it's just.. sometimes we have our good days and other days I want to strangle him and wonder why I even try."

Mia's eyes were sympathetic. Luna's eyes were encompassing all of the world in their understanding.

"Jessica," she said slowly, placing her hands on the priestess' shaking shoulders. "Listen. You know Kyle better than any of us.. but in some ways, you're blinded to him. He may do things that you think are horrible, but to him it may be the only right thing to do. He's a hard man, and he was raised to be a hard man, and it's kept him alive and well this long. I don't think he'll change any time soon.. and if you try to change him, then it won't ever last."

"I'm not trying to change him," Jess muttered stubbornly, eyes lowering to the patterns of Luna's skirt. "I just want him to.." she trailed off.

"If you love him for himself, then it will work out. He feels highly for you. You know he does. Be as stubborn as possible for this love, Jessica. It might take time, but I swear to you: You two can make it."

Hard to dispute the word of the being who constructed your planet, even if she was teenage flesh and blood and nervous soul, standing before you with sympathy. Jessica nodded, managing a smile. It wasn't a direct solution, but it was encouragement, and that could last her a while. She was, after all, very stubborn indeed.

Recalling that seemed to have calmed Jess down considerably; it was hard to hold on to a hot flash of anger with the gentle afterimage of her friends glowing in her mind. She slid her nightrobe on quietly, gathering the folded clothes into her arms and stepping back into the room.

Kyle had moved the chair so that it faced the room, and as she stepped out of the bathroom he raised his dark gaze to her. His mouth opened, his features screwed up a bit in thought, and then his mouth closed.

He always resembled a fish when he tried to apologize.

Jessica settled the robes on the floor, tucking the visible part of the flail a bit further under the pillow and running a hand through her hair. Ignoring him, basically.

"Jess, I .. uh.." he started. She lined her shoes up neatly, and scooped up her overcloak from the floor, brushing some dust off and hanging it up.

"That is.. well.. see, I get worried, and.."

"There's another person in town investigating," she cut in kindly, turning the blanket down and sitting on the mattress. "A mage. He expressed interest in joining up with us to figure this thing out."

She reached over to blow the lamp out, hence missing the quick expression that ran across his face. "Where'd you run into him?" Kyle finally grunted, adjusting his eyes to the new dark of the room.

"A bar," drifted her voice from the opposite side of the room.

"A bar," he repeated.

"A bar," she confirmed.

The jealous expression that so recently fled across his features returned and set up camp. 

"So you met this mage in a bar, and he told you he was investigating."

"Mmhmn. He didn't sound like he was barging in.. he was very _polite_ about it."

"I'll just bet he was." Thank the goddess the lights were off..

"I wish more people were that _polite_," the voice from the bed in the corner muttered. 

Kyle snorted, getting to his feet and kicking off his boots, letting them lie where they landed. "He wanna follow us around, or what?"

A snore was his only reply. Kyle rolled his eyes while he took his shirt off and shook it out a little. Obviously, she had decided the conversation was over, but when it came to pretensive slumber, Jess was pathetic. For one, she never snored.

Several nights on their long, arduous quest, he had stared at the sky and simply listened to her breathe.

Those days are over, he thought grimly, tugging his pants off and sliding into his bed, clad only in his boxers now. He was a bandit, a warrior, a thief. He dealt with danger and war and thievery, not mundane issues and social ladies. As soon as the dust settled and calm began to sink over the planet like some warm, comforting yet restrictive blanket, the tremulous relationship that had formed between him and Jessica became strained, forced. He was out of place in her palace, and she was repulsed by his uncouth demeanor. This mission seemed like a gift from above, a chance to test out whether they were only in love when they were in danger, but things were just as bad.

Magician in a bar, huh.

Maybe splitting up wasn't such a good idea, from here on in.

A terrified shriek woke the both of them only a few hours later. Jess bolted up in her bed, a hand darting under the pillow and grabbing hold of the flail. Kyle was only a fraction faster, already on his feet with sword in hands. 

"It came from down the hall," he said quietly, listening for any alien noise from their room. "It's just us, in here."

"Gotcha," Jessica answered softly, slipping her feet into her shoes and moving toward the door. Kyle abandoned his, going barefoot, and they exchanged a look in the dark before pushing the door open.

Several follow-up screams rang down the hallway, and a male shout. Jess murmured a quiet expletive and darted toward the source.

"Jess!" Kyle hissed. "Wait!" She skidded slightly and rounded a corner, and he swore roughly and took off after her. 

He didn't have to run far. Directly after the corner, the door to a room was hanging askew, torn off of the top hinge and kicked in slightly. A redhaired female (well endowed.. he couldn't help but notice) was squealing herself silly, pale and shaking with fright. Kyle blinked as she threw herself at him, quivering.

"Oh god! Oh god! Oh god!"

"Swell," he grumbled, trying to wrestle the maniac off. A ball of light suddenly appeared, adding visibility to the hallway and the room inside. 

Jessica didn't know light spells..

He pushed the redhead away carefully, thundering into the room, ready to deal with the danger. Ready to save the maidens. Ready to prove to Jessica that he still had The Right Stuff.

"Thank the Goddess you were across the hall, Len," she was saying to some thin, sickly mama's boy.

THAT was the magician?! Kyle nearly laughed himself faint with relief. He didn't have worry about that pale apparition stealing his priestess away. She'd have to be feverminded to ever even think about hanging around with this Len fellow.. tiny, unmuscled, white as a ghost, bowing politely to her as he wiped sweat off his brow with slim, delicate fingers.

Politely.

She loved polite people.

Shit.

"What happened in here?" he demanded gruffly, stepping over to Jessica with his biggest 'boss' voice. The magician seemed to take forever before he pulled that watery gaze off of the lady and peered at Kyle.

"Well. You must be the partner I keep hearing about," the thin man finally said. "The brawn of the group, I see."

Kyle took a moment to poke around that statement, searching for insults. Nothing solid.. he was obviously the brawn, standing next to Jessica in his boxers and sword at the ready. In his boxers.. not the fierce first impression he would have liked to give.

Jess blinked, looking up at Kyle, and then out in the hallway where the whimpering of the attacked still filtered through the conversation. "I'd better tend to her," she muttered, pushing past the swordsman and out the damaged door.

"Len, huh?" Kyle grunted, shifting the weight of his sword in his hands, deciding he could always excuse the threatening gesture as his caution in the moment. "Care to explain?"  
"Certainly," Len replied smoothly, gesturing toward a dark, huddled shape in the corner. Kyle's gaze flicked toward it. It vaguely resembled an overgrown Albino Baboon.. only black.

Maybe just a baboon, then.

"I'm rooming across the hall," the magician said. "And was writing in my journal when I heard a loud thud, closely followed by a feminine shriek of obvious terror. I was just walking into the hall when that thing crashed through the door, trying to run off with the woman in its arms."

"It didn't just go back out the window?" Kyle wondered aloud, glancing at the wideopen window. The woman was a damned fool.. he wondered who she was and made a mental note to talk to Jess.

"Who can guess the intelligence of a beast?" Len noted dryly, walking toward the heap of baboon and nudging it with a slippered foot.

Slippers. The man wore slippers. Kyle bit his tongue to refrain from blurting that slippers were for girls, and men wore boots.

"You slapped a spell on it, right?" he said instead.

"Yes, of course." His unnervingly pale gaze slid to the side, resting on the swordsman. "I think this might perchance be our lady-abductor."

"It's a baboon," Kyle said dubiously, trying his hardest not to be unnerved. "Who can't fight off a baboon?"

"This is a town of peaceful newlyweds," Len reminded him, "not trained fighters, and every one taken by surprise."

A grunt served as a grudging response. "Why don't we just kill it?" 

A disapproving frown, and long, tapered fingers drumming against a weak, thin arm. "What if we can't find where the previously stolen women are? We would have to track it to it's lair."

A dark scowl. "You mean let it go again.. and that's _if_ the women are still alive at all."

A strange, wire-thin smile. "I can only hope... what was your name again?"  
"Kyle," Kyle provided. "THE Kyle.. from Nanza." Ha. Let him fear the greatest bandit ever, let him cower before the hero of the planet and shakingly vow to stay away from the hero's woman.

"Never heard of you." Len shrugged his small shoulders and turned to regard the black mass of fur again. Kyle resisted the urge to break him over his knee.

Luckily, Jessica used that moment to return with a not-quite-as-terrified,-still-simpering redhead in tow. In better lighting, he could tell that the girl (and she was a girl.. well endowed or not) couldn't have been more than 14.

"Serene says her father is in town, too, but hasn't come home yet tonight. By the description," Jess quipped, getting a slight expression of disaste, "I think he's one of the buffoons who was in the barfight I saw earlier tonight, and one of the drunker ones at that. He's most likely asleep on some hardwood somewhere."

"Why were you two in town?" Kyle asked the girl, resting his swordpoint on the ground and, again, wishing for more than a pair of boxers.

The girl sniffed.

Jessica supplied. "They're visiting relatives in Parin, and stopped overnight to restock supplies."

"Parin..." He trailed off, thoughtful. It was the nearest town, but still just over two days away. He couldn't imagine this trembling (jiggling..) child spending a night under the stars.

"Her dad's apparently fairly well trained," Jess noted.

"Oh."

"I told her she can stay in our room until her father turns up. I'll take the floor."

"I'll take the floor," Kyle disagreed in a rather manly show of selflessness. He hoped she'd notice.

"She can stay in my room," Len interjected.

"No." Kyle shot that idea down immediately. 

Jess shot him a dirty look, and hastily added, "No need to trouble yourself further, after saving her all by yourself."

Kyle bristled. That was directed at him, he just knew it... and after his manly show if selflessness, too. Hmph.

"It was nothing," Len said softly, shaking his head a bit. "But should we not search for the lair now, so long as there is chance the women may still be alive?"  
"It's only a few hours until sunrise," Kyle pointed out, "and none of us has slept very well tonight. It'd be ludicrous to walk into the unknown without being in top shape."

"But.."

"Kyle's right," Jessica said with a tone of finality. "A few hours won't make a difference either way, and Serene needs it."

The swordsman puffed his chest a bit, grinning triumphantly at no one in particular. He was right, so take that, stupid mama's boy.

Serene, for her part, whimpered. 

Jess smiled at her wanly, letting go of her waist. "Kyle and I won't let anything happen to you."

"Nor I," the yellow-eyed magician quipped softly, and earned smiles of approval from the females.

Kyle flexed.

And blinked in surprise as Serene stepped away from Jess and pretty much attached herself to him.

"You'll really protect me?" she whispered, the first words she'd uttered all night save for 'oh god oh god oh god'.

"Well.. uh.. yeah," Kyle replied eloquently. The redhead just about swooned and clung to his arm.

He could see Jess twitch slightly.

Heheh.

"We'll meet at sunrise, here," the priestess announced, sounding tired suddenly. "Len, can you be certain that .. thing.. will keep under for that long?"

"The beast shall sleep deeper than the seas, my lady." He even bowed again.

Kyle lifted his sword again... because he had to bring it back to his room. He wanted to slide it between the magician's ribs. He did not. He felt proud of his restraint.

"And such a big sword," Serene was murmuring.

They parted ways, partners plus redhead toward their room, and magician across the hall to his. Over the quiet drone of Serene cataloguing his many good features (for once, an admirer that really annoyed him) and the low hum of Jessica's subsequent disapproval, Kyle barely heard the farewell, just hovering at the edges of his hearing.

"Goodnight, Jessica de Alkirk," the freaky Len was saying to himself. "I shall dream of you."

Kyle clenched a fist, gritted his teeth.. glanced toward Jess. If he had heard it, surely she must have (with ears that big!).

Her eyes were troubled, her lips in a thinset line. She'd heard it.

"Jess.." Kyle started, hesitatingly. The priestess kept walking, ignoring him or lost in thought. Neither was a prospect he was fond of.

"And such a tan!"

"Jess.." he tried again. Nothing.

"Is that your real hair color? Wow! It's so shiny!"

"Can't you be a little more traumatized?" he muttered, pushing their door open. 

"God, I could stare at you all night!"  
Needless to say, it was a very long night.

Sunrise arrived with all the majesty and ceremony of a drowning duck. Somewhere in the few remaining hours of night, the sky decided to cloud over and spill rain over the town, which didn't look like it would be ending any time soon. Jessica's internal alarm clock had roused her as soon as daylight should have creeping in through their window, and now she sat up to gaze dubiously at the torrential downpour. If it came down to having to track the strange black animal to its lair, this would definitely not be the best day to try.

Serene snored thickly from the bed on the other side of the room, the one furthest from the window. She was curled on her side, hugging a section of the blanket to her like a teddybear, or an especially thin and mangled lover. A thin line of drool glistened from her mouth to her pillow.

Jess smiled faintly, reaching over to relight the lamp. The room, a dim halfvisible grey, flared into a warmer sort of brightness. She yawned and stretched, arms raised above her head, and looked to the floor to see if Kyle was still sleeping.

Except he wasn't on the floor. A further examination of the room proved that the swordsman was asleep sitting up in a chair against the wall, at a position where he could see both the door and the window, his sword unsheathed and across his lap.

How long had he been there, Jessica wondered, her brow furrowing slightly as she slid her feet into the slippers resting by her bedside. And what was he so paranoid about? Hadn't they caught the baboon? They had, and it was securely under Len's spell down the hall. What was Kyle protecting? The girl?

Or maybe even her?

The idea brought with it a curious mix of stubborn selfsuffiency, and a deep warm feeling from somewhere near her gut. The big dumb oaf, they'd decided to wait until dawn because they were all tired, and now he'd had almost no sleep at all. 

Then again, he'd done more on less. Kyle was amazing in that respect; he had less sense than a goldfish in a bowl of ale (which was a suprisingly good analogy, she mused, as fond of drink as he was) and about as many braincells, too.. but he could push the envelope more than anyone she'd ever known.. save, maybe, Alex.

Goddess, she missed them...

Any musing flashback she might have had was cut off by a sudden chorus of muttering from Selene and a loud, obnoxious snore from the swordsman. Jessica smirked faintly, gently pushing the chair he was on toward a bed and tilting it until he rolled/flopped onto the mattress. He shifted onto his side, muttering, and then lapsed back into his droning snore. She gazed at him for a few moments, caught up in the way his breathing made the edges of his hair flutter, how his eyelashes were black against tan skin, the relaxed, almost composed expression on his face as he slept.

And suddenly she had trouble remembering why she had such a hard time getting along with him, and started to wonder why in the world she was so determined to win their arguments, to start their arguments... and most of all, wondered why she had so much trouble admitting to herself that she really was in lo-

A knock on the door startled her, breaking the train of thought before it could rush past a point of no return. She looked toward the door, somehow relieved for the distraction and at the same time... at the same time..

Pushed that thought away, before it followed the same path, and running her fingers through her hair to look presentable, she tiptoed to the door and opened it, just a crack.

"Did I wake you?" Len asked with a smooth, almost liquid sort of smile. He looked fully awake and carefully groomed, with the hint of a peppermint scent, slighly reminiscent of a handcream one of the priestesses at the Temple of Althena used to use.

"No," Jessica replied, shaking her head slightly as one hand gathered her sleeping clothes about her a bit more tightly. "I was already up. Is something wrong?"

"I've heard word about an attack on a young woman a few hours ago, while we slept." His lips curved downward as he spoke. "And yet the creature we caught last night is still secure, in my room. I fear there is another."

"Is she alright?" the petite blonde asked, eyebrows knitting upward in concern. 

"Since they live on the outskirts of town, her husband keeps a wand with several fireball charges. He managed to wound it, driving it off, but I hear she is rather roughed up, and in shock. I was planning to go ask them for details about the creature, but..."

"But didn't want to scare them any more, of course." Jessica slid the door open a bit more, waving him in. "I understand completely, you need a woman's touch. And I'll be able to heal the physical damage that was done, at least."

"That is what I had hoped you would say, Miss de Alkirk."

"Call me Jess, really. Just let me change my clothes.." She grabbed the neatly folded materials and slipped into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Len folded his hands together, casting a glance over the room, the yellow gaze resting for a moment on the snoring behemoth, sprawled across the bed like a skin rug. A distasteful sneer wormed over his lips, and he turned away.. blinking at the scarf from the other night, still in a rumple on the dresser. Slim fingers lifted it by a corner, taking in the fringed edges, the worn spots, the slight miscolored areas from repeated washings.. the tiny splotted line of blood from the bottle shrapnel skittering across the priestesses hand.

He tucked it into his pocket, features twisting into an almost frightening fascimile of triumph, turning around just as Jessica emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed in her usual robes and smiling warmly.

"Shall we wake them?" he asked, gesturing toward the sleeping Kyle and Serene. Jessica thought for a moment, and shook her head to the negative.

"They both need the sleep, and we'll be back soon. And knowing Kyle, he'd only traumatize the couple who were attacked even more."

"I agree completely," Len murmured, holding the door for her. She flashed him a quick smile and left the room, the pale mage following close behind.. his fingers massaging at the scrap in his pocket, and his lips slowly pronouncing out well-practiced words..

Back in Meribia, "Hell Mel" was grouchily sitting behind his giant mahogany desk, slamming a rubber stamp with the phrase 'Mel de Alkirk gives 2 thumbs up!' on a stack of paperwork that towered over even his impressive height. All of this diplomacy was threatening to give him a monster sized headache, and headaches were among the top three things he hated more than Magic Emperors and all of their wanna-bes. Dragons, he could handle. Bandits, he could crush easily in one of his meaty, mighty fists. Headaches, he could only growl at while lying in bed with a clothe over his eyes. 

Fighting was no help... it was definite. He had a headache. Grumbling, he pushed the papers away and set the stamp aside, rubbing at his hairy temples and wishing for the cool, soothing touch of his daughter's healing hands against his poor aching skull. Aye, that would no doubt chase away this migraine.. her mother had the same skill, and she wasn't even temple-trained.. 

Lifting his gaze to the window, he stared at the rainy outdoors (a poor day for sailing, his gut noted) and wondered how Jessica and that ruffish bandit boyfriend of hers were doing. He harumphed a bit, swelling with pride at the notion that she may have already solved the problem behind the disappearances.. and then glowering at the idea that Kyle might be up to no good with his darling, innocent little girl... !!

"Aargh, I'll crush his skull with my bare hands if he tries anything funny.." The idea both thrilled and shamed him; if Jessica herself thought the boy good enough then he must have some good qualities. It was just the jealous father in him thinking down on the lad. He did have a pretty big helping hand in the whole Ghaleon affair, after all. 

"I'm just being silly," Mel admitted to himself, twining his giant fingers and leaning back in his chair. "Was my idea that he go with her in the first place. An' he'd know better'n to cross ole Hell Mel, he does! RRAHHAHAHA!!"

Miles away, Kyle shivered violently in his sleep and rolled right off the bed.


	3. Pieces gone missing

For a hero already suffering from slight self-confidence issues, it really doesn't help matters to wake from your silent (slumbering) vigil and find that one of the ladies you were supposedly watching over has just left the room. It would just figure along with Kyle's luck that it would be the headstrong and infuriating lady, at that.

One of these days, he mused, he would have to sit down with Jess and have a long talk with her about what females should and shouldn't do without the strong presence of a protective male.

Rather, he _would_ have that sit down, if not for the horrible certainty that she would give him a resounding beating around the head and neck. Those head beatings really started to get to you after awhile.

"Women," he grunted, pulling his clothes on, trying to wipe the last bit of some nightmare from his thoughts. Something about a giant beastman, bearing down on him with a heavy two-headed axe in one hand a rubber stamp labeled "denied!" in the other. His subconscious understood perfectly. His waking self was drowning out the information with more important things. For instance, he ought to go take a minute to bathe, but it was Jessica's stubbornness and sudden absence that was making him go out into town anyway, so too bad for HER if he smelled a bit.

"Hmph," Kyle muttered to himself. "Lucky for her I'm the mature one here…" 

The discovery that NastySicklyWussyBoy's room (the rest of the world would know him as Len, but he had acquired this new, longer name in Kyle's head) was also vacated helped to spur Kyle on a bit faster. Serene was, for once, living up to her name, sleeping peacefully with a thumb stuck in her mouth and drool spreading over the pillow. He closed the door softly and headed into town.

When not distracted by women (as most of the ones he usually appropriated with weren't up at this ungodly hour, and on a rainy day no less, leaving only those determinedly homey ones with laundry and/or cows to deal with) Kyle could get things done at a rather astounding rate. A bit of questioning here and a small conversation there earned him a few choice bits of tasty information, and in only ten minutes to boot. A couple shoveling manure were more than happy to take a break and let him know that they'd seen a girl and pale man head through this section of town just recently, toward the outskirts of town. An old woman knitting a ridiculously long scarf on her porch was able to tell him that they'd most likely been headed for the house of those nice woodsy people, and though she couldn't remember their names she did hear through the grapevine that there had been trouble there sometime earlier this morning. The geriatric then said she might be persuaded to remember more information if he would just step closer and let her feel those bronzed muscles. Kyle blinked slowly and politely explained that he usually left the touchy-feely up to girls who could still eat solids.

At this point our hero started to walk a little faster. It wasn't that any of the knowledge garnered thusly had made him suspect danger, or that he wanted to get far, far away from the old woman, or the fact that he was getting wet… just that Kyle had a neat little voice in the back of this head that most people would notice as Reason.

Kyle's reason was a little strange, and not all that frequent, but extremely reasonable in its own way. It had offered, in the past, such stellar bits of wisdom as "Keep your mouth shut, she's really pissed this time", "That white-haired fruit in the pointy hat looks a little shady", and "Say! You should dress like a woman!" 

At the moment it was insistently remarking that NastySicklyWussyBoy was alone with Jessica at some little house near the woods and away from the rest of civilization, and that this was a bad thing. It was insisting this so loudly that the quick walk switched to a jog, and the jog to a trot, and before too long there was a lone swordsman pounding his way across town in a flat-out run.

* * *

The cabin was your typical rustic home; cozy, sequestered, and littered with animal heads. Hunting trophies jutted out from every clear space on the wall, staring endlessly with black, empty eyes, fur catching the dust before it could fall onto hastily done plaques and labels.

When Jess and Len had first arrived, they had business to attend to, of course. The husband, Fior, was nervous and agitated, pacing along the length of the porch while waiting for them. Len took him aside and asked soft questions while Jessica went in, seeking out the wife.

Her name was Till, and Jessica could only describe her as 'rustically pretty'. She had a strange sense of masculinity that supposedly sprung from being able to "wrestle down a mama bear" and "chop a tree in less'n five minute!" 

The attack had, of course, left her slightly shaken, though it seemed mainly because she didn't know what the attacker had been.

"No animal I ever seen before in my life, ma'am," Till reported, shaking her head in a wondering daze while the priestess tended to the scratches and scuffs. "Keep in mind it was might dark, and we had no lights on, on account o'it being morning as we bein' newlyweds, but I know the animals of our woods and that weren't any of 'em."

Jess rather liked the accent; it reminded her of the fishermen in Saith, and that was enough to bring her mind back to the good old days, as it were. 

Fior insisted that since they had come all the way over, he and his wife should treat them to lunch. Till made a pot of tea that tasted rather like bark strained in water (Jessica restrained herself from looking in the pot for the offending piece of tree several times), but the sandwiches were decent enough. Len requested his without meat, to which Fior looked at him as he might look at a man with eight heads, but somehow found some lettuce and other various vegetables. 

The light brunch commenced with much crunching, leaving Jessica time to glance around the cabin and organize her thoughts.

The light wounds she'd found on Till were less severe than she'd expected, on the way here. The scratches hadn't run very deep at all, leaving her to think that either the animal couldn't get close enough to do real damage or else had strangely short claws. There was a slight mess in the living room, a few pieces of furniture knocked over, a broken window, one deer head hanging askew, the scorch marks from the spell used to chase the creature away. 

"D'you reckon we're the first to have fended off the monster?" Till asked, raising her eyebrows with some strange air of pride. 

"So far as we can guess, yes," Len supplied, wiping at his lips with the plain white napkin he'd gotten with his sandwich. "Though we have already captured a similar beast: large, hairy, and fairly quick. With only a wand, you should consider yourselves lucky."

Jessica swallowed her mouthful of tea hurriedly and tried to smoothen the edges of that statement.

"What he means is, it's a good thing you two are so adept at survival."

The couple practically glowed. Len gave her a curious look, to which she smiled and shrugged. 

The odd knack of knowing what to say certainly never came natural to Jessica, if only when dealing with her father. Maybe she'd picked it up from Mia, during that long and far-away time of travelling. Jess herself was more of the abrasive sort, loud and truthful, blunt and fierce. The only thing that made her seem soft in comparison was standing next to Kyle…

The slightest of frowns drew the edges of her mouth downward. She'd managed to stave off thoughts of Kyle all morning, but having found the door locked they had crept to the windows and snuck inside regardless, like any good thief. 

And now she had to admit it to herself. It felt strange being here with someone who wasn't Kyle.

It felt… _wrong._

"Smiles suit your face more than frowns," Len said softly, by her ear. Jessica jerked her gaze up, studying the thin, washed-out yellow color of his eyes from the depths of her introspection, and dully recognized that she was disappointed. That flat lemon shade should have been a restless, deep chocolate, standing out vividly against the whites. Kyle's eyes flashed with color when he felt emotions; Len's nearly blended into one mottled shade.

But she'd been staring, and color rose to her face for the seemingly rude moment between them. She hastily gulped the rest of her tea down and hoped that he would figure she'd been gazing at him with something other than disdain.

"Least it finally stopped rainin'," Till sighed, leaning against a doorframe and folding her arms over her chest. Fior smiled lopsidedly and winked at Jessica and Len.

"My Till hates the rain," he informed. "Likes it dry an' warm, she does. Me, I prefer cool, but love demands ya make sacrifices. I got used to sleepin with the windows shut."

"Shut?" Jessica blinked up at him, raising an eyebrow. "They were all shut?"

"Course!" Till chirped. "I hate breezes when I'm in bed."

Len glanced over inquiringly. "Something unsettles you?"

"There's no glass in the room with the broken window," she said slowly, "so we know it was hit from the inside, heading out. I had figured it had come in through another window."

"True," her pale companion noted, twining his fingers together in thought. "We assumed, since the other one we found had entered in the same fashion."

"Most definitely not," Fior argued, shaking his head. "They were shut, and we didn't hear any glass breaking."

"Then how did it get in?" Jess asked, glancing around the cabin as though the walls would supply the answer. The others followed suit, spying for shifted panels or unlocked doors.

But of course, in a house at the edge of the woods, everything was shuttered and tight.

"A most peculiar mystery," Len murmured. "Perhaps the two beasts are not entirely the same in behavior… perhaps they act as our species sometimes does, male and female."

"A couple?" Fior translated into his vocabulary with a start. "You think the two thingie-ma-bobs ransacking the people o'this town might be a couple? Wouldn't THAT just be the flea on the bear!"

"The… what?" Len blinked.

"The driving force," Jessica guessed. "Back home it was 'the air under the gull'. Basically he's saying it wasn't just gathering food for itself, but for both of them… and now since we've got one under wraps, the other is rampaging."

"We survived a rampage!" Till hooted.

"I'll go get the scrapbook," Fior offered, scooting into the bedroom, closely followed by his wife. Len and Jess exchanged a small glance, and smiled.

"They're very enthusiastic," he noted softly.

"They're in love," she replied with another slight shrug. "It happens."

"To some people, perhaps." He shifted in his seat and gazed off into empty space. Jess watched him for a moment, comparing the line of his jaw, the small, flat jut of his nose, the watery complexion…

"You and he must be very close," Len said suddenly, startling Jessica.

"Me and who?"

"You and your sword-wielding companion," he clarified, still just staring at the wall. "You are staying in the same room, after all… and he was very protective of you last night. I haven't received such looks since … well… I don't think I ever have." He spread his hands, fingers stretched, and looked at his palms as though answers were contained therein.

"He didn't harass you, did he?" Jessica hazarded, half in dread. "He comes across as harsh sometimes."

"Nothing of the sort," Len assured. "But it was made rather abundantly clear that he considers you his."

Several emotions tried to shove their way into Jessica's head at once, and got stuck in the doorway. Internal chaos ensued as she tried to sort out rage, offense, relief, disbelief, and giddy delight. 

"He does, does he?" she finally forced out, not as angry as it could have been, not as loud as it was in her mind.

She wasn't anybody's. She was just herself.

But… it didn't seem to piss her off as much as it should have. She would have liked a minute, or an hour or two, to sort through this strange shift (the phrase 'priestess stuff' popped into mind, and she squashed it away with annoyance), but Len was speaking again, hands on the table and looking at her. She met his gaze and tuned back in.

"Is he mistaken in his insistence?" he asked smoothly. "Because if he is wrong, then I would like to throw my hat into the ring, as it were."

Jessica stared for a moment, searching for the kindest words she had that meant 'never in a million years, pal'. 

Len tilted his head curiously.

"One day he will mess up, and you will realize he doesn't deserve you."

"He's not like he comes across at first," Jess defended instantly. "He isn't all brash and forward and brainless muscles. He thinks things out sometimes."

"I stand corrected, then." He leaned back in his chair. "Your stalwart protector isn't all brawn, after all."

"He isn't my protector," Jess fumed. "He's my partner in this. I could handle myself fine even if he weren't here."

"Yes, that's why he hovers over you with his mighty sword in hand."

"He does not _hover_," she hissed through her teeth. "He just needs to get it through that I can take care of myself."

"You're right, of course," Len sighed. "I'm only being petty in my jealousy. It is obvious that he trusts you, as he isn't even here at the…"

The door burst open as Kyle rushed into the cabin, eyes wide and searching, hair half-plastered to his face by the recent rain or the sheen of sweat his run had brought on.

"…moment," Len finished lamely.

And the argument choir took the stage.

"You…"

"Jess, calm down for a minute," Kyle pleaded.

"Are…"

"I can give you some good reasons for this!"

"SUCH…"

"Um… Jess… breathing is good..."

"A JERK!" she concluded finally, stomping on the hardwood floor.

Fior and Till were peeking from the door of the bedroom, having heard the door slam open moments before. Len was still in his seat, watching the diminutive blonde shriek at her companion with an easy smile on his face.

Luckily for the well being of Len's internal organs, Kyle was too busy trying to diffuse the priestess-bomb to notice.

"It isn't like I don't think you can be on your own, I just thought we were doing this together, and by us I mean JUST us, but-…"

"You selfish, egotistical numbnut! Len's trying to find out what happened to his _sister_! YOU might think this is a fun little side trip but people are being hurt, probably KILLED!"

"This ISN'T just fun for me," Kyle insisted, raising his voice to be heard over the banshee-wail of the female. "I ran all this way cos I was worried about you! Wandering all around town when you know it's dangerous! You didn't even leave a note!"

"You're worse than my father!" Jess cried in disbelief. "Do you wanna know why I'm mad, Kyle? Let me count the ways!! ONE! You don't trust me! TWO! You left Serene all alone after her terrible ordeal last night? How insensitive is that?! What's she going to think when she wakes up in an empty room?"

"But-…"

"You know what, consider this partner thing through. You're obviously never going to do anything other than what YOU think is fine at the time, so go on and whore yourself around, or get trashed, or even investigate on your own. At THIS juncture in time, I just can't care anymore." Jessica tucked her hair behind her ears, narrowed eyes glinting with a furious gleam, and grabbed Len's sleeve. 

"… Miss DeAlkirk?"

"We're leaving." She yanked the mage to his feet and stormed out of the cabin, dragging the thin man behind. The door slammed behind them with incredible force, shaking the foundations and rattling a deer head right off of the wall, landing with a resounding thud.

Dust settled.

Fior cleared his throat carefully, pulling himself and his wife into Kyle's stunned line of sight.

"… Want a sandwich?"

"How… Arrgh!" Kyle threw his hands into the air in frustration. "She ALWAYS takes things the wrong way, and I never get a chance to put her on the right track!"

"It's not really your fault, kiddo," Fior assured, pulling a chair out for Kyle to sit on. The swordsman ignored it, pacing in place, fists clenched and lips locked in an upset scowl.

"I KNOW it isn't, but I'm not kidding about this always happening! You'd think she'd be anything but upset that I was worried about her! It's not that I don't think she can take care of herself!"

"Calm down, there, youngun," Till interposed, planting her hands on her hips. "What y'all need to do in this instance is go after her!"

"So she'll yell at me and insist I don't trust her even more," Kyle grumbled dryly.

"He's got a point, Till. If he chases her again she'll most likely hate him."

"I mean, what'd I DO?!" He shook his fists at the ceiling.

"Like I said, man, it isn't you. It's just this crazy nutso female thing!"

Fior was cut off abruptly by Till crashing a baking pan onto his head. She hid the offending piece of kitchenware behind her back and smiled sweetly. 

"What Dearest means t'say is, sometimes ya can't understand the mystery of feminine wiles, so don't let it get ya personal."

"I just hate the idea of her alone with that…"

"The skinny kid? He seemed nice enough," Till mused. "Wish he woulda ate more, though."

Kyle took a moment to seethe in absolute hatred. Fior, in the meantime, got back to his feet, nursing a bump to the noggin.

"If you're sticking around," he offered, "could you help us clean up the mess that danged creature left?"

"Crea-… Oh. Right. You were the attacked couple. What happened?"

"I got up early this mornin and the thing leapt outta nowhere at me!" Till crowed, flailing her arms. "Outta nowhere! Scared the dickens outta me!"

"My Till doesn't scare easily," Fior said proudly.

"Damn tootin, I don't. Like I was tellin' yer ladyfriend, only thing that gave me the willies bout the thing was, I aint never seen no animal quite like it!"

Kyle squinted as his mind slowly muddled through the backwater dialect. 

"Describe it."

"I really can't," the woman admitted, creases of age or worry suddenly marking her otherwise smooth, if survival-hardened features. "T'weren't no animal, but ... t'weren't no man, either. Some kinda in-between thing."

"I never saw an animal what wore clothing," Fior added, folding his arms over his chest.

"Clothing?" Kyle pinned Fior with his dark gaze, mentally cataloguing the oddities he and the group had fought while on their adventures, and systematically crossing them off one by one. A beast in clothing… he was stumped.

"Jess couldn't figure it out either, huh?" he finally guessed, adjusting the weight of his scabbard over his hip. Fior tilted his head and rubbed at his chin.

"To be perfectly honest, I don't think we got the chance to tell her, did we, Till?"

"We were busy in the bedroom." She glanced over as Kyle's eyes grew huge and he made an odd choking sound. "Looking for the scrapbook," she added hastily.

"Blast," Fior muttered. "Speakin' of scrap, I forgot to show them."

"Scrap?" Kyle leapt upon the word like a pouncing cat. "Evidence?"

Yet even the notion of being a better sleuth than the priestess did nothing to alleviate the heavy, sick feeling that had taken up residence in his gut. His reason, which had been nowhere to be found during the actual altercation, cheerfully noted that only the presence Jessica herself could heal that particular ailment.

If he hadn't just ruined it all…

* * *

Indignant storming had gotten her and Len quite a distance away from the cabin before her rage began to clear, her steps began to slow. Her conscience started to nag.

She hadn't exactly given him much time to state his case, after all. He'd been out of breath from running, stuttering out some sort of weak excuse while she went into full-fledged tirade. Of course, she was angry! Kyle had to have the worst timing in the world, bursting in like that, proving his obvious lack of trust in her. And after she'd defended his name to Len, to boot!

And Len… Jessica's gaze darted to the silent, slim man walking beside her, his hands folded behind his back, his eyes on the trees. Sure, he was a bit spooky, but shouldn't a priestess of Althena rise above that sort of thing? He hadn't done a single thing to give her the willies, in fact he was being the nicest man she'd ever met in her whole life... excepting maybe Alex, and he was always busy with that save-the-world, beat-the-megalomaniacs thing of his. 

Something about Len both attracted and repelled her, though. He was kind, polite, quiet, delicate, clean, scholarly, and dedicated. He was on a mission to rescue his sister… or, at the very least, stop whatever had gotten to her. Wasn't that heroic, noteworthy? Admirable? Was there a single thing besides his raspy voice and watered-down eyes and skinny little twitchy fingers that gave her any reason to want to shrink away?

Well, there was the fact that his lips were like colorless little flesh worms, but beyond that, no! She was being irrational. She was trying to compare him to Kyle.

Did Kyle do that to the other women he ran across? To the random girls in the street, the flirty women? How did she fare in the comparison? Why did it matter so much? Wasn't she mad at him? Why was she even thinking of him? Damn him! Taking up all this space in her head when she was trying to clear it! Wasn't that just like him, not letting her have her space, smirking knowingly at her empty excuses and seeing right to the core of everything with those damned dark eyes…

"Arrrrrghhh!" she wailed (or roared, as she did have those robust Hell Mel genes), stopping in the middle of the road and stomping a foot in sheer frustration. Len blinked mildly, stopping as well.

"Something… upset you?" he asked, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. "Would you like to discuss it?"

"I'm discussing it enough already," Jess grumbled, rubbing her temples. "It's driving me absolutely batty."

"Ah. The mental cycle of question and accusation." He shifted a foot in the dirt, studying the pattern of dappled sunlight. "Am I to blame?"

"Huh?" She ceased her massaging and readjusted her hood. "You, no. Why?"

"I thought perhaps I had come on a bit too strongly, back there. If that is the case, I ... apologize. Profusely."

Jessica stared at him flatly, her lips curving in a slight, wry smile. "Len, nothing of the sort. You should see the _usual_ sort of flirting I get… if you can call it flirting."

"That is a relief," he sighed, shaking some of the hair from his vision. "I'm trying my hardest to seduce you, you know."

Birdcall accentuated the thick, frozen silence for a good half-minute.

Len tilted his head. 

Jessica blinked.

Len smiled faintly.

"I'm joking."

"… I knew that."

"Mmhmn," he agreed with a smile, starting to walk again.

"I did!" Jess called, starting after him.

"Thus your shocked, uncomprehending stare."

She fell in place beside him, automatically picking up her end of the bickering, falling into the routine so easily that it didn't even matter where they were headed. Maybe all journeys proceeded as such. Maybe, she thought with an inner smirk, this was the only way she knew how to deal with men, after all.

"Jessica."

"What?"

"I think it's going to rain again."

* * *

After a certain amount of time, all of the rooms in all of the buildings of the Magic Guild of Vane began to acquire the same scent. It wasn't by any means unpleasant, and for certain one grew used to it, after the hours of studying the students had to go through (else risk setting themselves on fire during the final – see that happen once in class and rest assured the cramming never stops).

Mia loved the smell of the Magic Guild. She equated it with all of the memories of her childhood, all the hours learning, bent over ancient tomes, marveling at the incredible things people could do with their wills and their hearts. She had never quite distinguished every little bit of the peculiar meltingpot of smells. There was the scent of heavy, leather-bound books, of slight must and dust, the sharpness of charred paper, melted wax for sealings, and maybe even just a pinch of something arcane and mysterious. Eye of newt, as it were. 

Even more recently, however, this scent gave her cause for joy. She could smell the Magic Guild because there _was_ a Magic Guild. The floating island of scholars had been slapped out of the sky by massive destruction, and had been rebuilt and re-risen. A great deal of the banners and flags streaming from the turrets of the main hall had been embroidered with phoenixes. New students and old students had flooded the campus, everyone pitching in ideas and work and magic and sweat until the entire city had been returned to its pristine glory.

And by goddess, it would be _hers_ someday.

"Something wrong?"

The slight, nasal tenor cut into her ensuing visions of the future, bringing a smile to her face as she turned to regard the mage carefully balancing a stack of books in his hands, staring at her from the doorway.

"Why no, Nash, why do you ask?" she replied, lifting the hem of her robe slightly and stepping over to help him with his burden.

"You're just standing there with your eyes closed, inhaling a lot. You looked like Nall in a fisher town." He grinned at her, eyes flashing playfully beneath the great swoop of hair he carefully styled every morning (and in subsequent 20 minute intervals).

"I'm just thinking about how much I love this place," she said shyly, reaching for the uppermost few books and nestling them in the crook of a thin arm.

"Thanks." Nash glanced into the room behind her. "What were up to, anyway?"

"I was cleaning out the scroll storage," Mia explained, glancing at the half-dusted mound of rolled paper behind her. "I ran across a keepsake of mine and went off daydreaming." An embarrassed giggle escaped her lips, and when she looked back to Nash there was a strange, warm expression creeping over his face. "How about you?"

"Running a few errands for your mother before lunch... which, by the by, I'm inviting you to." He tilted his head slightly askew. "Keepsake?"

Smile widening a bit sheepishly, Mia held up a tattered, discolored piece of rough cloth for his inspection. After a few moments, his eyes widened almost comically and the stack in his hands teetered.

"Is that from what I think it is?!" he yelped, wobbling slightly to try to keep the books upright. Mia grabbed the books from the side, helping him regain his balance, a blush creeping up over her face from her neck.

"Maybe," she drew out, folding the scrap in her hands.

"Mia, why in Althena's name did you save that? We almost died in that stupid hot air balloon, remember?"

"Of course I do," the young spellcaster smiled. "Racing all over the world with my greatest friends, seeing everything and meeting so many great people."

"Plummeting toward the earth at insane speeds, resounding crashes, ubiquitous sore muscles," Nash groaned. "That's your idea of a great time?"

"It was the best time of my life."

He opened his mouth again for another quip, but let it die away instead. She was standing in one of the narrow sunbeams allowed by the thin windows, and dust particles roused by her vigorous cleaning sparkled all around her. His throat went dry as she looked up at him and smiled sweetly the way only Mia could.

"Don't you agree, Nash?"

It hadn't been the best of times for him, really. The adventure in his point of view had been filled with guilt and fear and betrayal. 

But it had also brought him together with the people he loved most in the world.

"Yeah, Mia. It was."

"I wonder what they're all up to," she sighed, placing the scrap down on the table. "Alex and Luna… I'm sure that Nall is eating or sleeping. I bet Jess and Kyle are doing something very fun!"

"I bet they're at each others throats," Nash countered.

"Don't be silly," Mia chided, patting his arm gently. He glanced down at her manicured fingernails against the blue of his robe and felt his face heat up. She was smiling in her special sweet way again.

"You're right, I guess," he said, shifting the weight of the books slightly. "I mean, look how far we've come, you and I."

Her eyes met his, sparking with mischief, reminding him how much she'd grown up from the shy, demure, frightened Mia he'd known as a child. 

"I'll bet at this very moment, they're spending quality time and enjoying this great, sunny day," she said slowly. "Maybe she's cleaning out the Meribian Hall rooms.."

"Jess? Clean? Get real."

"And maybe he just happens to walk by and catch a glance, and stops to say hello, and then maybe they get to talking about old times… and then, I bet you, she walks over to help him, and maybe compliments his pointy chin.."

"Kyle doesn't have a pointy chin," Nash said with a blink. "If anything, then I d- … Oh."

"And after she compliments him they might go out to a nice lunch…"

"Yes, I think they'd do that," he agreed, nodding.

"And maybe after lunch," Mia murmured, "they could take a walk out behind the buildings, and look at the view, and talk about .. things."

"Things?" Man, she was being weird today.

"Or if they don't walk to talk," she continued, ignoring his stutter, "then they could just sit on the lush, green grass and enjoy each others company and have some very, very nice quality time.. don't you think?"

"I think we should - .. I mean.. I bet you that's exactly what Kyle and Jess are doing. Will be doing. Should be .. er.. quality time. Quality time is nice," he finished lamely, wondering at what point in the relationship Mia became an instigator and he became a dry-throated shy stutterer.

"I'm glad you think so," Mia chirped, all sweet, bright smiles once more. "Why don't you come back when you're done your errands, and we can go out to eat?"

"Sure thing, Mia," he said calmly and evenly, stepping into the hallway and slightly down a bit so that the thunderous beating of his heart wouldn't shake the scroll room apart. "Holy cow," he muttered to himself, shaking the slope of hair from his vision. "Keep it together, Nash man, you're the cool one, 'member? The ultimate awesome mage, He Who Smites With Thunder. She's just putty in your hands. Putty."

He continued his mantra as he headed down the hallway, a grin sliding across his face that may or may not have looked goofy, but he would only classify as "heartstopping and ultimately awesome". 

As for his friends, he could only offer up a little prayer that they were, indeed, so lucky as he was.

After all, everyone needs a little quality time. Right?

* * *

It felt like he'd been walking for hours by the time he looked up to find himself at the inn once more. Kyle was surprised to glance at the sky and note that the sun was still skirting the morning section of its daily trail. He tended to lose track of time when he delved into rare brooding; either was later than he thought or no time at all had gone by.

The slow winding road through the city lent him the chance to try to get his thoughts in order. He wasn't truly sure if it had worked yet, though he had gone over each section of the morning and poked holes in the conversations, examined and re-examined every he'd said, coming at last to two conclusions.

One, it wasn't his fault for worrying over his girl, but maybe it would be wisest to note voice these worries in the future.

Two, he really, really hated Len.

Three, he'd also be sure to not refer to her as "his girl" in her presence.

Lastly… somehow, seeing her storm off like that, and the oppressingly silent aftermath, had somehow hurt worse than her strongest right hook. 

The worst thing was, he couldn't pinpoint exactly what was going wrong between them. Maybe it was the town, though he'd tossed that idea aside after mulling for a bit. It was a perfectly pleasant place, and an environment filled with so many young lovers (and the whole terrible disappearing thing, too, but he wasn't factoring that in as a part of the towns atmosphere) would surely do anything _but_ drive two others apart, right?

So then he thought maybe it was a female thing, but it didn't quite ring true with him. He almost played the thought that maybe they weren't meant to be, but hastily stopped the sentence before it could even form out fully. He wouldn't consider that, not even for a moment. He needed her.

There. Laid bare, truthful and a little squirmish but irrevocable. He needed Jessica. Kyle of Nanza needed his Jess. This whole mess was making him feel all twisted and rotten inside, it needed to be fixed. If only it could be so simple as finding her and telling her everything.

No, no, obviously the thing to do here was break Len's neck.

… is what he WISHED was reality. Growling under his breath about the circumstances and what a perfect world would be like, he strode toward his room to wash up before finding Jess and putting it all on the table, as it were. Words had done nothing but screw him over for this whole trip, so it was up to words to fish him out of the hole he'd dug himself.

He'd forgotten completely about Serene, and the sight of her sitting upright on the bed, a sewing kit open on her lap and a needle in her hands, just about gave him a heartattack.

"Oh! You're back!" the girl chirped brightly. "How was your morning?"

Kyle eyed her warily, waiting for her to start cooing over his rugged good looks or leech onto his arm, as she had last night. Instead, she seemed very self-possessed, almost normal and … well, kind of domestic, with the whole sewing thing. He chalked up her irrational behavior to terror and shock (while mentally applauding her good taste in times of trauma).

"Sorry about that," he shrugged, propping his sword against the wall. "Went out to investigate some stuff early on, you were still asleep."

"Where's Jessica?" she asked curiously. 

Kyle turned away, knowing his expression would give away more than he'd like, realizing too late that even turning away spoke volumes.

"Crap," he muttered, resting his forehead on the wall.

"That bad?" Serene asked gently, curling her legs beneath her. "What's wrong? You two are like.. the perfect couple. Like story stuff. A priestess and a rogue, defending justice and all that."

"The priestess has a temper the shorter than her pinkie and the rogue can't ever seem to say or do the right thing," he sighed, rubbing at the back of his head. "We've been on thin ice with each other for a few days, and it just about cracked this morning."

"It's hard to be independent these days, you know", she said suddenly, setting her work aside. "For women, I mean. I have to tell you, I admire Jessica greatly. I could never do what she's done. Just look at last night, I fell apart completely. You probably think I'm some hysterical little nitwit, don't you?"

"No," he said, immediately ceasing all labeling of Serene as 'hysterical little nitwit', since with his current luck with females she could probably read minds. "You were attacked, is all."  
"But when Jess gets attacked or whatever, she doesn't crumble like that, does she?" Serene prodded.

Kyle raised an eyebrow. "'Course not. She fights tooth and nail. She's a hellcat on the battlefield, honestly. Probably saved my hide more than I can count."

"See, my problem," the girl said with a sigh, "is I'd always be afraid of someone proving me wrong, just once. Just one time of showing fear or hesitance or a dependency. Then all the effort would be for nothing."

"That's not how it is at all," Kyle argued with a slight blink. "You saying that Jess thinks if she shows weakness then we'll all think she's useless?"

"I've only just met her," Serene admitted with a slight shrug. "I'm only throwing possibilities out at you. Maybe she's more afraid that she'll find out she _does _need someone after all."

He leaned against the wall slightly, arms crossed over his chest in Deep Ponderous Thought. Jess was always snapping at he and Mel whenever they tried to make sure she was safe, insinuating they didn't trust her, when in fact they were just didn't want to lose her. Never wanted to lose her. But they were clear and open about that, right? So it was something on her end coloring the information wrong. She was always insisting she could do things on her own, she didn't need to be followed that she could do it all on her own perfectly fine. Constantly arguing that she didn't need any help, pushing away while at the same time pulling him closer with searching glances and occasional conversations. 

An old nanny had told him when he was younger that the thing people deny the most is like to be the largest truth, and the thing that they push away the most is like to be the one thing they'll end up needing in the end.

Jess was afraid, and she needed him, but she was afraid of needing him.

"I believe that's the look of understanding on your face?" Serene asked softly from the bed. Kyle looked over, pressing his lips into a wry little smirk. 

"I was actually just thinking to myself that maybe you're not _all_ nitwit.." A pillow whomping against his face cut that statement off, and as he caught it she began her stitching again.

"Incidentally, what are you doing?"

She looked up with a blink, before glancing downward again to inspect her work. 

"This? I was trying to think up ways to help you, Jessica, and Len for helping me last night. For you two, it was obvious you needed some romantic medical attention, but Len doesn't really let on about his affairs, so instead I'm mending his shirt. Found it in his room this morning while I was looking for you guys."

She held up the faded article of clothing for him to see, pointing out careful rows of stitching along a frayed sleeve and corner. "Shame about this rip, though," she mused softly. "I could fix it if I knew where the rest of the material was."

Kyle's vision had tunneled into sudden, perfect, crystal clarity.

He knew exactly where the rest of the material was.

In his pocket, where he'd put it after Fior had handed it to him as evidence.

* * *

Author's note - 

This took forever. -.- I know, and I apologize profusely. Strangely enough, the first half was like pulling teeth, and still doesn't feel quite right with me, though after three rewrites I suppose this is as it is supposed to be. The Nash/Mia scene, and everything after, however, was done in a matter of hours. Odd, how that works out. At any rate, I hope this chapter can help those still waiting to pass the time, and I thank you for all the kind reviews. With any luck, chapter 4 (which should be the last, and perhaps an epilogue) will be out in less time than this one took.


	4. Where All our Paths Lead Us

            It's good to be young and in love in the springtime.

            Aside from the torrential downpours the season tended to bring, spring also brought with it some sort of sweeping romantic wind. It incited young people all over Althena's green planet to make with the moon-eyes, run off for late night escapades, and dig deep into their wallets for money to buy flowers.  Young people in the spring, in the springtime of their lives.

            Somewhere at that precise moment, a young woman smiled at her boyfriend over breakfast, as a white winged cat (the only odd thing about the picture – most often springtime does not bring odd creatures with its romantic winds; sometimes these things just happen) waxed nostalgic about a fishing town.  The boyfriend smiled back, his young face caught somewhere between a daydreaming boy and a heroic man.  He was a most fitting soulmate for a woman who was still halfway girl-next-door and yet halfway goddess.  The two tended to communicate with smiles and soft gestures until about noon; they understood each other perfectly enough without words, and it made the beginning to each day a bit more intimate.  It also left the space completely open for the winged cat to dominate all conversation, which left said creature absolutely happy as a clam, or perhaps happy as a young dragon that knows all ears are at attention.  

            Somewhere also at that precise moment, two young mages rushed around, stepping carefully in the long robes of their trade, shared a soft conversation punctuated with yawns.  Sometimes it seemed as though the long hours of rebuilding had only just begun, and that the amount of work left could have buried them both, if only they hadn't found a secure ground in each other.  The young man admittedly was still quick to smirking moments of extreme egotistical grandeur, though nothing compared to what he used to delve in.  His affection toward the black-haired female, swiftly stepping by his side with armloads of musty books, had evolved somewhere along the line, though when he occasionally stopped to wonder it was difficult to pinpoint just _when.  The black-haired female, swift on her feet despite the armload of musty leather-bound books, had no such queries.  Her love ran deep and simple as a true color.  She found no reason to question it._

            All over the planet, indeed, springtime worked its mojo.  A young hunting couple ooh'ed and aah'ed over a previous adventure, and the courage and stamina of each other.  A plains couple called jokes toward each other as they ran the new herd of horses through their paces, smiles flashing brilliantly white from tan faces.  A Meribian lawyer embraced his young wife after a rough sail home.  A boy of about twelve shyly handed his neighbor a daisy, inciting an allergic reaction.  In the quiet room of an inn, the windows shuttered tight against the rain, a woman sat methodically sewing a shirt, last vestiges of hero worship suddenly fading in the memory of how his face had turned like cold stone, and the eyes like chips of flint, and how the words "murderous rage" didn't quite seem sufficient to describe the phenomena they were meant to.  

            But perhaps most importantly, at that precise moment a priestess was noticing that sewers really, really stink.

            "It really, really stinks in here," Jessica grumbled, resisting the urge to cover her nose and mouth with her sleeve again.  That worked fine for the first five minutes or so; now, the stench of muck seemed to have permeated the fabric of her clothing.  The last thing she wanted was that putridity even closer to her nose.  "I don't think I'll ever feel clean again."

            "I sympathize completely," Len replied in his soft voice, "and I must admit that I seem to have some sort of phobia towards rats."

            "They'll leave us alone if we make enough noise," she offered.

            "And yet stealth was our intention," the mage sighed, shaking his head.  In the bare, faint light of their illumination spell, his corpse-like skin tones and wide yellow eyes were even more disconcerting, though Jessica speculated she wasn't exactly Miss Lunar material at the moment either.  

            "Maybe a fire spell could-..."

            "I will simply deal with them," he cut in.  His voice was tinged with a desperate weariness.  "I feel we've delayed long enough already, you and I."

            She opened her mouth, and closed it again.  'You and I'.  His was _not the mouth she wanted to hear those particular pronouns paired together from.  Rather, she didn't want anything to do with his mouth at all.  _

            Jessica did all of her best thinking in the moments just before bed, and halfway between daybreak and noon.  It was just slightly past the latter point, and she'd been doing a lot of thinking as she and Len walked through town, tracking an animal that was virtually untraceable in the aftereffects of the second, and more violent, rainstorm of the day.  Her tracking skills were nil; she was more suited to sea than forest, afterall.  Luckily for the both of them Len seemed adept at reading the tiniest sign in the foliage.

            A thought that had kicked her mind into overdrive.

            "We should take this next right, up ahead," Len directed, glancing at her.

            "Mmn.  I'm trying to go over what we know so far," Jess said slowly.  "Could you listen to see if I've got any holes you could patch?"

            "Alright."  He gestured for her to go ahead as they rounded the corner, and started on another long stretch of muck filled grossness.

            "Now.  Kyle and I arrive yesterday, which would be day 11 of the disappearances.  Seven girls had vanished.  That night, another gets attacked while in the hotel, and hours after subduing the baboon type creature at fault, another goes apeshit on a young couple at the edge of town."

            "Was that a pun?" Len interjected, pausing to inspect a clump of … substance.

            "What?"

            "A baboon type creature goes apeshit."

            "It wasn't intended."

            "It was quite funny."     

            "Len…"

            He chuckled, standing back upright and leading the way once more.  

            "Yes, yes, continue…"

            She sidestepped the substance and cleared her throat.

            "So we've surmised that the two creatures might be mates, because the absence of one seemed to really irk the other, and it being spring and all maybe the two were in the full swing of heat.  Without its mate, the other … thing… has gone feral."  She paused.  "I wonder if the feral one is the male, or the female…"

            "I find females to be quite fierce and rather frightening when provoked."

            She aimed a Death Stare at his back, which Kyle often remarked should be bottled and sold as an item for combat purposes.  Len didn't seem to notice.

            "We should have checked the sex," he capitulated.  "I will take the blame for that."

            "No reason to," Jessica shrugged.  "But can you think of anything I've left out?"

            "You seem to have gathered the facts quite thoroughly.  Watch the walkway on the left, here, it looks slippery."

            "Ugh."  She navigated around the shiny spots carefully.  "What about how we couldn't figure out how the ape got into Till and Fior's cabin?  There didn't seem to be any point of entry, only exit.  And beyond that, since when do simian-type animals live in a sewer?"

            There was a long silence, punctuated only by the echoing of their own footsteps back at them, and the occasional sick _schwicckk sound of someone's heel landing in things they didn't dare investigate after.  _

            And, after a good minute, Len's voice took back up residence in the air between them.

            "I have lost hope for my sister and her roommate."

            Jess blinked, gaze darting up to his back, shoulders tense and slightly hunched.  He said the statement very simply, but a world of other words swam in his voice.

            "Len?"

            "I can only hope that we can keep this pattern from continuing."

            She smiled very faintly.

            "We'll do whatever we can, Len."

            "Mmn."

            "So… where had you been living when your sister called for help?  You schooled at Vane, right?"

            "For a few years.  I had kept touch with her through all the semesters."  His head tilted slightly.  "Why do you ask?"

            "I'm trying to keep my mind off of the smell.  This isn't exactly how I planned to spend the day, you know."

            "And how did you plan to, Miss Jessica?"

            "Well, cavorting through cesspits wasn't high on the list," she said wryly, using the wall to support a quick hop over a spill of some sort, and then gazing at the slime left on her hand ruefully.  "I'd hoped to speak to the mayor."

            "The mayor.  I had met with him, briefly, when I first arrived.  He is very young to be head of a city."

            "Everyone in this city is young," Jess replied with a shrug.  

            "What were you hoping to speak with him about?" Len queried, taking a left.

            "The list of girls Kyle and I put together – of girls who vanished, I mean, I'm sure Kyle has a list of girls of a whole other sort – it's got some inconsistencies in it."

            The mage snorted softly at the reference toward the swordsman, distaste plain in the mere sound.  

            "It bewilders me as to why you continue to travel with him.  What sort of inconsistencies?"

            Jess ignored the part about Kyle, focused on the other matter instead.  She kept her voice steady and light, almost casual.

            "Well, for instance, no two girls were roommates, and none of the girls had the last name of Destine."

            Len stopped short, halting his forward progress so suddenly that Jess nearly walked right into him, which probably would have sent them both careening into the river of swill running past the narrow walkway.  That, too, she ignored.  

            "Perhaps you are mistaken," Len suggested.

            "Perhaps," Jessica admitted.  "Though that doesn't explain why I can list off each of the seven girls missing, and none of them match your description of your mysterious nameless sister, nor her roommate.  And if we assume that maybe I just didn't ask the right people, and add on your sister and her roommate to the list, that makes nine missing.  You've been following this case right along, yet you agreed with me that it was seven up to this point."

            "I may have made a mistake," the mage said smoothly, turning to face the diminuitive priestess.  "I am capable of such things, being merely human."

            "I agree completely," Jessica continued in her same calm tone.  "And those weren't your only mistakes.  Last night at the hotel, you claimed that the ape had come in through the window and burst out through the door of Serena's room, yet the door had been kicked inward, not burst outward as it would have been if your story were true.  For that matter, for a mage who's spent most of his life indoors, by the look of your skintone, you're awfully good at tracking.  And speaking of, you haven't actually looked at anything for the last ten minutes; you've simply walked, because you _know where we're going.  I haven't had the chance to contact the Premier of the Magic Guild yet, but I really don't think it's necessary.  Of all the things you've said so far, that part seems to be the only truth."_

            "Jessica," Len breathed, shaking his head in slight disbelief.  "Jessica, I don't understand you.  Why did you come with me at all, if I so obviously can't be trusted?"

            "It's simple, really.  See, there are two things I'm really good at.  Just two.  Beating people over the head, and healing people in need.  I came with you because I still can't figure out which type you are.

            The silence that stretched the seconds was hard to categorize.  It wasn't a stunned sort of silence, because both of them were intelligent enough to have seen this juncture before it truly hit.  Len held his gaze, the washed-out yellow a deep saffron in the effects of his light spell, fixed on the young blonde.  And then, slowly, he smiled: a small, faint curve that held little humor.  

            "That's just like a priestess," he murmured, turning away from her.  "That's why I need you, you know.  Do you know that?  I knew I would need you, just you, from the moment I saw how out-of-place you were in that seedy, filthy tavern.  You glow, Jessica de Alkirk.  You're so full of … vitality… and compassion.  And strength."  He looked up at rough, grimy ceiling, exhaled slowly, and glanced back at her.  "We're almost there.  Would you follow me, for one last turn?"

            "Almost where?" Jess asked gently, making a quick mental check of her status.  Healing ability, at the ready.  Skirts, smelling awful but easy to move in.  Battle mace, back at the hotel under her pillow.  Damn it.  Left and right fists, ready for face-pummeling action.  

             She could handle this.

             Len had opted not to answer, walking around a corner leaving only the sound of his departing footsteps.  Jessica scowled slightly, momentarily warring between common sense and the need to see things through to their end.  

            Similar to being told that a particular snake may or may not be poisonous, and then left to decide whether or not to take the steps toward finding out.  You could walk away and be safe for the moment, but what if you run across that particular type again someday, and you never bothered to find out?  Run away again?  Run away from snakes forever, across the whole continent, across all of Lunar?

            Then the debate ended because Jessica realized that she hated snakes to begin with and there weren't any around at the moment.  It was on sheer auto-pilot that she chose to follow him as opposed to running back toward the cleaner air.  Not to show up Kyle by solving anything on her own (though that would be an extra special bonus!), not to prove to herself that she was independent (she was both her biggest fan and yet harshest critic).  Simply that her legs were going that way and her body happened to be attached.  Oh, and that part of her brain was really hanging onto the visualization of beating someone's head in with a fist.  Chances were this was the likely path toward good, psychotherapeutic violence.

            She rounded the corner after him, and he was waiting, smiling.

---~----~----~---

            This was the second time today he'd run all over town in the pouring rain.  Granted, as pouring rains tend to go, it was rather a gentle torrential downpour, as he'd grown somewhat accustomed to Nanza's sudden flashfloods, but two before noon was just unnecessary and he really didn't have time to change into dry clothes.  On account of the whole 'Save my headstrong idiot girlfr-…'  

            Sentence headed toward point of no return.  Abort, abort, abort!

            … on account of the whole 'Save my headstrong idiot CASUAL TRAVELING COMPANION from sickly bastards' issue.

            This town seemed a lot smaller when he wasn't sloshing around in the mud in a near panic (that's a near panic, because the great Kyle of Nanza does not fully panic – he _near panics).  At least a dozen times he must have considered stopping and banging on a door to ask for directions, but then he would always rationale that it would take more time than it was worth and damn it, he would make it there soon enough, maybe just around the next curve… wherever there happened to be.  Wherever his Jessica was._

            Yes, HIS Jessica.  He'd shoved aside the knowledge that such a possessive pronoun would royally piss off the absent priestess in question.  It made him run faster to keep it.  That was all that mattered at the moment, anyway.  They could have a nice long talk after this was over about giving and taking and patience and independence but at the moment all he wanted was to be warm and dry and know that she was safe.  And a pale thin mage broken in half.

            That particular happy thought made his fingers twitch.

            Finally, he stopped to catch his breath under the overhang of a tavern, grunting and sluicing the rain from his eyes.  

            This wasn't working.

            "Alright," he grumbled, shaking streams of water from his hair like an irate hound.  "So no luck with the random running around.  What now?"

            Where would they have gone?

            Somewhere that NastySicklyPaleMama'sBoy (the name seemed to be growing) would be able to convince her to go to.  That ruled out taverns.  Hell, that ruled out most places, because she would want to still be looking for the second creature… if there even _was a second creature.  Hadn't they mentioned something last night about tracking the ape to its lair?  _

            So where would an ape hide from a rainstorm?  And how could a mage walk away with a priestess and both inexplicably vanish from the face of a town?

            And for the love of Althena, he was staring **right at the upright, door-like entrance to the sewer system for the town, built in the standard 'walk-in' model that Meribia had made so popular.**

            Here would have been a great moment for some sort of hissed statement of enraged, determined triumph, but Kyle was too busy running into the sewer to care.

            Luckily (he would have offered thanks to the goddess but he figured she was at home with a cozy breakfast right now and far better off) the way the rain had ruined all opportunities for tracking in town had no bearing down in the sewers.  The stench was vaguely annoying, of course, but it was just another factor he didn't have time for.  He followed along the wall carefully, without a torch or a light (being not a mage, and incapable of producing such things), alert and straining for the tiny indications that kept his heart from beating straight through his breastbone and smashing against a wall.  The slight mark of a heel in a pool of sludge urged him leftward.  The imprint of a few fingers on the wall called him forward.  A whole footprint, once, in a substance he didn't really want to identify.

            And intermingling scents of priestess cinnamon and mage peppermint.

            "Just a few minutes," he muttered under his breath, turning a corner swiftly, somehow managing not to skid through a slick patch of refuse.  "Just gimme a few minutes, and I'll be there… just be fine for a few more minutes…" Jessica was good at defense, after all, just as good as she was at screeching, or hollering, or achieving that impossible level of ear-bleed volume.

            Or compassion, or healing, or smiling.

            Also, swift kicks to the privates.

            Kyle bit back a grin and switched his quiet mantra as he turned yet another corner.

            "Don't kill him yet, Jess…"

            Just a couple of minutes…

            "… That's _my job."_

---~----~----~---

            "_That… is a big-ass door."_

            Len quirked an eyebrow upward, either surprised by Jessica's reaction to the door (which was, yes, of an overly large size, though not really pertaining to any anatomy) or by her choice of adjectives.  Jessica supposed it might have been the latter, because really, how was he to know she'd grown up around sailors.  He couldn't be half as surprised as the other priestesses at Althena's temple had been.  

The memory made her snicker, and the snicker made Len's other eyebrow raise, but he didn't ask what was so amusing.  Maybe he was too polite.  In a sudden, extremely Kyle-ish moment, Jessica wanted to grab him by both ears and shake him until he developed a personality a little less slimy, a little more real.  

            Worse, she was starting to wonder if she could really help with whatever the hell was wrong with him.  

            "Despite your findings," Len finally said, turning to look at the door before them, "I do have a sister."

            "That's just ducky."

            He smiled passingly, resting a thin (and frail, she noted now) hand on the heavy brass handle of the door.  Despite being huge (veritably, 'big-ass') and no doubt thick, Jessica took a few steps back as the mage prepared to give the massive portal a shove.  It was caked over with grime and rust, and the edges looked half-rotted.  She had seen wood take a similar look on ships, after long decades of sea use, though anything that looked _that bad would be land-bound.  _

            The door, like a long-dead ship, the enclosed musty air, and the dank echoing dark behind them made it feel like she was walking into a tomb.

            "I have a sister," Len repeated quietly, turning the latch in the handle and leaning all of his weight against the door, forcing it open inch by inch.  The movement left long streaks amid the slime on the floor – streaks among older streaks, some maybe a few days old.  He gave one last Herculean (for his size) effort, making enough of a gap for both of them, and then stood back, catching his breath and massaging at his arm.  "And it's far past time you meet her."

---~----~----~---

When Alex was younger, he would spend a great deal of his time loitering around the monument to the great hero Dyne, which happened to be conveniently near his own little house in the small village of Burg.  When this great fascination with Dyne started, he could never really place, though some of his earliest memories were of standing against the tall granite tribute, stretching his arms up and wondering when he'd grow enough to reach the top, watching the sun rise and set while sitting against its comforting cool surface.  He had all the tales memorized (and annoyed Nall to no end with their endless recitation) by the time he'd been eight, though by ten he was daydreaming his own adventures right along those of his hero.  Sometimes he'd even go so far as to imagine traveling _with_ Dyne.  One would note he never envisioned Dyne in a kilt.

            Now, older and wiser, a Dragonmaster and soulmate to his oldest friend (Luna, not Nall, that'd be a whole different spin on things now wouldn't it), Alex wondered what sort of things Dyne used to imagine after his adventures were through.

            After breakfast he'd found himself at the memorial, gazing at the still-sharp lettering on stone.  Wondering what prompted Dyne (or Laike, if you must) to lead a life of travel and combat even after the prime of his fighting youth.  To keep his skills sharp, or to be there to conveniently lead whoever the next young hero might be?  Was it simply because it was the only way Dyne knew how to live?

            Alex didn't think he could live that sort of life.  He would take up the sword gladly to protect those he loved, and their way of life, and the innocent and the young and all of that… but he was happy here, in a small house near that of his parents, with Luna and Nall and omelets in the morning.  They would still make music together, in the quiet hours after sunrise, and he could easily imagine now a life of perfect contentedness, of simple pleasures of family and friends. 

            And pancakes.  The once-Goddess made incredible pancakes.

            "Aaaaaaalex!" 

            He smiled a bit, turning his head to the sound.  Nall's voice, once so high-pitched, had settled a bit after he changed to his larger dragon form a few times (a sight that still shocked the Dragonmaster a bit, and each time he thought maybe they ought to tease the creature a bit less often, else be stepped on).  

            "Right here, Nall," he replied warmly.  The little dragon-cat-thing settled to a seat on Alex's shoulder, balancing easily out of sheer familiarity.  

            "I should have known you'd be here," Nall said with a grin, ears flicking forward with interest.  "And I've got such a wicked deja-vu."

            "I was just thinking," Alex explained, holding back a shrug at the last moment, not wanting to roll his friend from his perch.  "This is the place I come to when I think."

            "I know that," Nall tsk'ed.  "Thinking about what?"

            There was a pause as Alex tried to muddle through exactly what had been on his mind.  He liked to say as little as possible, which often meant figuring the precisest way to express what he meant.  As his life got more and more complex, that became a bit more difficult.

            "I was thinking about Dyne, and what sort of epilogue he'll make for himself, after his story is through," he finally said.

            Nall was silent, peering at his face (and as he was very close, he had a great view).  After a moment he flipped his wings, resettled them, and cleared his throat.

            "I think that maniac will forever wander the continent, appearing out of nowhere to terrify young adventurers with his lack of sense for plaids, because I think that's when he was having the most fun.  And I think that you're wondering if there should be something more you're doing with your time."

            Alex blinked mildly, gaze turning to consider the creature from the corner of his eye.

            "Oh?"

            "Uh huh.  I think… I _know_, that you're happy here and now.  But I see you staring at the sword sometimes.  Or how your hand brushes against the chest where the Dragon Armor is all stored away.  Do you miss it?"

            Alex shook his head slightly.

            "I did it because it had to be done.  To save Luna, to stop Ghaleon.  Maybe partially, because I thought getting Ramus out of the house for an adventure would be exercise.  Now that it's done, I don't miss the danger, or the fighting, or the duty.  Only the companions."

            "In that case, I bring good news, oh fearless leader," Nall chirped.  "Luna sent me here to find you, and this time it isn't about your dirty socks."

            "Oh?"

            "Yes, oh.  She says we're going to Meribia."

            "Meribia?"  Alex blinked again.  "Now?"

            "Yeah.  She says 'If we leave now, we'll get there just in time'."

            "… in time for what?"

            "Hey, man, she's _your_ girlfriend," Nall snorted, spreading his wings and taking to the air once more.  "_You_ figure her out."

            The young man smiled slightly, turning away from the monument to start on the path toward home, his dragon friend gliding carelessly after him.

            Figure out Luna?  That was an adventure all on its own.

---~----~----~---

            The floor of the room beyond the heavy oaken door was pocked all over with craters, pits, and holes looked to have been literally torn from the filthy, dust covered surface.  High walls arced around them, six of them, the peculiar shape lending more size to the eyes than what was truly there.  Pillars rose from strategic points, though more than half of them had eroded and crumbled to nothing.  Worn paths and suggestions of an intricate floor design solidified the theory that Jessica had immediately started, when first she and Len had stepped across the threshold.

            This place was a temple.

            She just didn't know to _what_.

            Some sense, or taste, or electric feeling hung about the air, brushing against her skin as she followed Len further in, toying at her hair, whispering at her instincts.  Some hint of a dedication, of a purpose, of something old and immense that once was but hadn't been seen or heard from for years.

            Lying over that sense was an echo of the same entity, but diminished.  A pang of a presence that was silkily sinister, and so old it made her teeth ache.

            And straight ahead.

            "Len," Jess whispered, reaching to try and snag the hem of his clothing and stall them.  "I don't think this is a place we should be."

            The mage hummed softly, deftly stepping out of her reach as he maneuvered around the gaps in the floor, continuing toward the back of the wide, gigantic sanctum.  Pausing to look behind and be sure she followed, he seemed to find her statement morbidly amusing.

            "Miss de Alkirk, your warning is a little late."

            "I don't think you understand what I mean," Jessica insisted, keeping her voice somewhere between hiss and hush.  "There's something…"

            "Here," Len finished for her, nodding shortly.  "Believe me, I know.  Though I wonder how it feels to you, a priestess of Althena.  Is it going to stop you from seeing this through?  Didn't we come this far?"

            "…No," she said softly, clenching a fist.  "But you'd better start doing some explaining."

            The mage gazed at her for a long moment, perhaps unaware of how his flat, considering stare was making her inch closer toward homicide.  Finally he shook his head and exhaled wearily.

            "I hope to the gods that I'm right, Jessica.  I'm becoming quite attached to you, I fear, and I would much rather be killed by you than have to see your death."

            "… What?"

            Len pressed a finger to his lips and shook his head, stepping to the side and pointing a few more feet ahead of them.  Jessica scowled slightly, but set aside the notion of throttling him (for a moment) to see what he was gesturing towards.

            It… may have been, once, a girl of thirteen or fourteen.  For all outward appearances it was a normal teenager, curled on a massive broken slab of stone in quiet, restful slumber.  Golden-blonde hair pooled about her shoulders, eyelashes twitched slightly, seeing some inward dream that the rest of the world hadn't been invited to.  To complete the illusion, small shoes were parked nearby, unlaced and waiting to be worn.

            It was a perfect facsimile of a younger sister.

            It only lacked a soul.

            "Whatever it is that she ran across," Len said softly, "doesn't seem to be fully complete.  It runs low on life force every few days, and I can only assume that it lacks a proper form as well, since it took up residence in hers.  Do you see the marbled shard of material behind her?"

            Pulling her eyes from the girl-who-was-not-a-girl with marked effort, the priestess squinted and strained until she finally found the angle at which to spot it.  A bit bigger than her hand, and jagged.  Obviously broken off of some larger piece.

            "Yeah," she whispered.  "But there isn't anything special about it."

            "There used to be," Len murmured back.  "When I first found her, it was still glowing and she was still half-coherent.  It took a few hours for it to completely take her over."

            "And then?"

            He slid his eyes from the sleeping form to meet with Jessica's.  "And then, when it was able to speak, we made a deal."

            Jessica stilled.  

            "A… deal."

            "My sister is the only thing I have," Len sighed, gazing upward at the broken, high ceiling.  "No one else has ever given a damn for my well being.  No one else has ever been there for me… or depended on me.  The lives of strangers mean nothing, so long as she is given back to me."

            "…Now just hold on a minute, here…"

            "If I bring it enough energy, it will be able to coalesce into a form of it's own.  I will get my sister back."  He looked at her, eyes intent as though he were pleading for her to understand.  Jess started thinking that this mystery was heading in a very bad direction and gauging the distance to the door.

            "But then I met you, Jessica," Len continued.  "And the plan changed."

            "Changed how?" she asked slowly, noting all of the objects between her and the entrance to the sewers – holes to avoid, a patch of crumbled pathway.

            "As a priestess of Althena, I wondered if perhaps you would recognize whatever this thing is that has taken over my sister."  He glanced to the sleeping girl and then back again, smiling humorlessly.  "Which you do not, but which is perhaps not important.  Aside from that, I was entertaining the notion that you might hold the ability to cast it out of her.  Exorcise it.  Eliminate it, send it on it's merry way to the afterlife, whatever you may call the practice."

            Jessica blinked at him silently while her mind explored that option.  Exorcism wasn't widely performed because most possession claims turned out to be more of an illness of some sort, which was usually quite fixable.  Illness could be healed, and priestess healed all the time.  Jess could heal in her sleep (and had, in fact, many times over journeys).

            But somehow she figured there would be a very big difference between "fix this girl's ailments" and "drive out the evil malevolence that took root in there and is trying to eat the townsfolk".  Beyond that, she could already guess the next statement the mage was going to say: If she couldn't heal the girl, then she would be an excellent source of lifeforce, being so tied to magic and magical forces.  Dinner time, little sis, yum yum.

            Len sighed in heavy disappointment.

            "I can see this isn't going to work.  Those furtive glances to the door betray your opinions."

            "I'm thinking, alright?" she snapped.  "Who's the priestess here anyhow?"

            "That would be you, of course," he replied straightaway, removing from a pocket an old, soiled scarf of a gentle green.  "And as priestesses are so hard to come by around here, I do have to insist you stay put."

            Jessica allowed herself one moment of shock at seeing the fabric (which she hadn't even realized had gone missing) before deciding that while polite and softspoken and driven by familial affection, she was not going to stand around and argue with this particular mage while he played with her accessories and some horrible evil thing slept near them, waiting to be fed a nutritious morsel of de Alkirk.  Unfortunately by the time she'd gotten over the moment of shock, Len had already said a word and her feet decided to disobey by not moving.

            "… You son of a bitch.  You bound me."

            Len shrugged idly.  

            "I suggest you muster up your best attempt at an exorcism.  My sister will notice your scent soon."

            "You_ bound_ me," Jess repeated incredulously.  "Do you know how NOT allowed that is?"

            "I did mention I _used_ to study at Vane, did I not?" the mage replied dryly.  "The headmistress shared your disgust with the ability."

            "Of bloody well course she did, Mia's the one who got it on the 'Do Not Cast' list.

            "I never used the spell for its whole spectrum of effect," Len said defensively.  "I'm not like those who use it to make slaves of people, or force others to do horrid things.  I use it for more of a holding spell, since I never mastered those."

            "Forcing me to be eaten is pretty damned horrid, Len."

            "If you manage to release my sister, that will not be an issue, Jessica."

            She ground her teeth furiously at his complete lack of sense while he walked forward to the sleeping girl, gazing down at her with his back to the fuming priestess.

            "Please don't expect your hulking man-brute to deliver a swift rescue, I would add," he said softly.  "Should the man appear, he would find himself in a similar predicament as you do."

            "But you don't have anything of Kyle's," Jess replied, which she knew simply because Kyle tended to wear everything he owned, which was either clothes or sword, and when she'd seen him so briefly earlier in the morning he'd all things with him.  Unless Len had stolen Kyle's underwear, which was simply unthinkable.

            Len simply looked over his shoulder at her.

            "Of course I do."

            She was about to argue again, when she figured out what she meant.  

            Of all the times to blush.

            "If I had fallen in love with you I would have left with you, or found someone else for this," Len continued to explain.  "I thought perhaps with your radiance you could make me better than this, or if you were shining brightly enough it would hide the bloodstains I've acquired.  All you ever had to do was love me back.

            "But I can see you're only for him.  You'll never love me while there's someone like him."

             "That makes me feel a hell of a lot better," Kyle said from the doorway, unsheathing the Insane Sword from its scabbard by his thigh.  "Almost as much as breaking you in half will."

            "Kyle!" Jessica cried in surprise, twisting around to look at him from across the wide room(as her feet would still stubbornly not comply).  

            "I know, I know," the bandit nodded.  "'How'd I find you here?'.  You underestimate my supreme tracking ski-.."

            "What the hell TOOK you?!" she interrupted shrilly.  "I've been listening to this lunatic rave for what seems like an hour!"

            "Hey!  I just went skulking through more crap than I wanna think out, and I only MADE it here because your great big footprints are so easy to spot!"

            "There's gonna be a matching set on your ass if you don't get over here!"

            Kyle grinned roguishly, hefting his sword and tensing.

            "The lady's wish is my command."

            "Bind," Len said in a bored tone, and Kyle's rush forward was suddenly a stumble, complete with flailing of arms.  Jessica cringed as he fell, leveling a hateful stare at Len as the mage shrugged with a smile.

            "So you are his after all," he murmured, reaching out to caress at her hair and frowning when she jerked away.  "…Fine, then.  Best not watch this, then, since you care for him so.  I would imagine watching your loved ones devoured by monsters ranks high on the Trauma list."

            "You leave him alone," she hissed.  Len shot her an amused look, rolling up his sleeves.

            "Never fear.  I won't lay a finger on him."  He cupped his hands together and whispered something into them, then pulled them apart and clapped.  The air shimmered slightly.  "Fifth semester class," he intoned.  "Summoning.  I wonder how Mr. Muscles will fare against the Hydrid."

            "You pale, sick, nasty little man," Jessica spat, frantically diving into the anger in order to ignore the terror that shot through her.  She could hear the Hydrid behind them, and remembered what fighting one was like.  About eight feet tall and vaguely serpentine, the many-headed dinosauric beasts were easy to take down if you could just avoid the strikes long enough to get a clear shot at the neck.

            But Kyle had no mobility.

            "What wonderful timing this all is," Len droned.  "I get to feed two desperately hungry things.  Good morning, sister."

            The girl/thing had opened her/its eyes, and blinked the flat grey oculars once before sitting up in a jerky, mechanical motion.  She… no, it, Jessica asserted, there was nothing female or even human in those eyes, gazed momentarily at Len, as though remembering him and his purpose there.  Len simply stared back, looking more colorless than ever.

            The Hydrid was roaring and tromping about behind them.  Jess stopped caring about the mage and his sister and his stupid tragic motivations completely, and turned as best as she could to look toward Kyle.  

            If they were both really in for it this time, then she wanted to see him.

            She wanted to see only him.

            …And, she _did_ see him.  Amazingly, she actually saw him running around and, in a blur of movement she recognized as his SleighRide maneuver, she saw him completely eviscerate the Hydrid and then pose winningly amidst its innards.

            "You broke the binding spell?" she gaped.  Kyle looked up at her in bland incomprehension, kicking aside a heap of dead flesh.

            "What spell?  And get the hell away from that creep, I don't like him."

            "The binding spell!  The… the one that makes you not move!  He cast it!  You stopped!"

            "Oh, then."  Kyle tilted his head at her quizzically.  "I got my foot stuck in a pothole.  What, you can't move?  And who's the freaky looking girl?  Bride of Mama's Boy?"

            "Whatever," Len sighed, turning on a heel and walking a few feet away to watch them with flat yellow eyes.  "Enjoy being eaten.  I just don't care anymore."

            "Eaten by what?" Kyle scoffed, peering down at the teenager who was eyeing them with slate grey eyes.  "This little missy?  No way, she looks too young... that's gotta be illegal."

            Jessica elbowed him in the gut sharply, taking hold of his arm and pulling him backward a bit.

            "That's not a girl, Kyle.  It's a thing."

            "That's a little harsh."

            "I'm not kidding," she hissed urgently, tugging at his bicep.  "We need to go."

            Kyle hummed skeptically, looking down at Jessica's serious and pale visage.  He gazed at her for a long moment, then pursed his lips and nodded.

            "Alright," he said, "but we need to have a long talk later."

            The happy couple then linked arms and skipped out of the sewer to live a happy life in the sunshine.

            As if.

            Actually, at this point the young teenage girl began to grow and reshape, skin becoming a leathery greybrown, the sound of disjointing bones and shifting muscles creating a disgusting cacophony of pops and snaps.  A low, inhuman groan (or it could have been a growl, but with a pained sort of quality to it) rebounded off of the stone walls of the hidden sewer temple.  A few final echoes of ripping flesh heralded the completion of the metamorphosis.

            A long, grey, lizard-ish type creature stretched to a length of at least fifteen feet, flexing the wicked claws that ended its forelegs as it balanced on back haunches with a thick tail.  Hissing in a breath through curved, shiny black teeth, it landed back on all fours to peer at the two adventurers with blazing grey eyes.

            "Jess?"  Kyle asked in a calm voice.

            "Uh huh," she replied, staring at the beast.

            "Why didn't we run away during that whole nasty transformation bit?"

            "Well, Kyle, speaking for myself, I haven't been able to move my feet since Len's binding spell," Jess said evenly.  "As for you, I think you may just be an idiot."

            He glanced down at her lesser height, dark eyes flashing intently, though her attention was held on the serpentine creature still adjusting to its own skin.  She was mussed and filthy and they both stank of the sewer they'd taken to get here.  The path had left its mark on her clothes, smudges of grey and brown and green along the hemming of her hook and cloak.  This was hardly where he'd expected this case to end up, when they'd first started from Meribia down that dusty, beaten path.  At the most he had surmised there would be some random hungry beast, and while he was kind of right, nowhere in his hazy guess of the future was there he and Jessica, fighting a lizard-demon-thing while covered in shit.

            She had never looked more beautiful.

            A plan had never been so easy to make.

            "Do what you can from there," he said shortly, lifting the tip of his sword to a steady angle.  "Whatever spells you can think of."  

            "And you?" she asked curtly, daring to take her gaze from the transfigured girl to shoot him a wary glare.  He grinned as their eyes met, a flash of vivid white teeth amidst his tanned face, the contrast only enhanced by the poor lighting of the underground.

            "I'm gonna trust you to keep me alive while I skewer us an ancient evil or two."  With that he ducked down slightly, pecked a quick kiss onto her forehead, and then rushed forward with sword at the ready.

            Jessica hurriedly shook off the shock, watching the bandit try to draw the creature away, and raised her hands with a grim smile.  Even if no one knew what they were really facing, she would just cast spells until she ran out of energy or one worked.  Things were so blessedly simple when it came down to it like this.  Kyle would fight his way, and she would fight his way, and maybe they weren't the most perfect of teams but damned if they didn't give it their all.

            Besides, she'd been harping all this time that she just wanted his trust.  No way was she going to let him down now that he'd given it.

            Smiling fiercely and starting her spell casting, Jess thought hopefully Kyle wouldn't be too irate about that other plan she had going on the side.

----~---~---~----

            Len Destine was a scholar.

            He had never been athletic, strong, or in any way fit.  He tended to have a mild immediate dislike for someone well-built, either from envy or from a youth full of bullying.  Had he gone outside more, no doubt he would have just been ridiculed more.  Rather he spent his days inside the cramped and glorious corners of his town's library, absorbing information like a pale sponge and waiting for the chance when his own talents would be recognized, and when he could finally make a difference in the world with a role other than punching bag.  It was on his younger sister's encouragement that he applied to Vane, and with her faith and endless support in mind that he got through the Trials.  She should have been the older of them, really.  She was always standing up for him against the other boys, against their parents, against the world.  Always sheltering him from that which was harsh.  

            Just once he wanted to be the one that saved her.  That she could rely upon.  He wanted to be strong, and to do whatever it took to be able to see her shining blue eyes, not that hideous flat grey of the _other _who'd slipped inside her.

            But Len was a scholar, and as he watched the pair fight in tandem, each in their own way, he seemed to finally understand what he'd known since he saw his sister suck the life out of the first townsgirl.

            He wasn't ever going to get his blue eyed savior back.

            Len Destine was a scholar and a brother, and abruptly he knew the sort of derision and disappointment she would greet this Len with.  "What good is anything to you if you have to be someone else to get it?" she would say, or else snort angrily and ask how he'd become the bully, or maybe she might just kick him in the shins.  He'd never disappointed her.  Angered her occasionally, and certainly let her down despite his best efforts, but she'd never been disappointed.  She would always hug him and forgive him.

            He didn't think this was something she could ever forgive.

            Len Destine was a scholar and a brother and a mage, and as he was casting his gaze about the ruins idly (anything to avoid seeing the abomination that was his sibling) he spotted the strange shard that started it all, and saw for the first time the slight flicker still weakly proclaiming an inherent magic.  Crouching to ghost his fingers over it, he looked up slowly.  The man named Kyle was doing his apparent best, whirling the sword with an incredible skill that Len could scarcely process, let alone hope to possess.  His teeth were clenched in absolute resolution, and sweat was sliding down his skin, mingling amidst dirt and several slight wounds from shrapnel and close calls that Len hadn't seen.  He was doing everything in his ability to keep the thing (it wasn't Jeni, not his Jeni, she was blonde and beautiful after all) away from Jessica, who continued to throw spells despite her mostly healing repertoire.  She stood tall and determined, shaking almost imperceptibly with the exertion of so much magic.  They were both giving it their all.  Both fighting so the other could live, desperate for each other as he was desperate for Jeni, and yet they hadn't become so corrupted as he.

            The thing had swatted Kyle with its tail, a lashing he simply didn't have time to avoid, and the blow sent him tumbling across the floor and smashing into one of the crumbling pillars.  Another ineffective spell drifted over its skin and it pivoted to lunge at the small priestess, teeth gleaming a rich black in the spell light.

            The decision was so clear that it blotted out the rest of the scenery.  He assumed Kyle had yelled because it was something Kyle would do.  No doubt Jessica (how she reminded him of Jeni!) was readying some last ditch effort.  She would fight to the end, he figured.  It was endearing.  He really could have loved her, perhaps in a different and perfect world where he would have been worthy of her love.

            He knew he wasn't worthy of anyone's, not anymore, just as he knew what he had to do now.

            Len Destine had never been strong, yet under his hands the fragment of the seal crumbled to dust.  He sensed more than heard the startled and pained roar of the creature as it halted almost mid-flight, scrambling to land on its feet a few yards from Jessica and whipping it's head back and forth, screeching in confusion at the severing of the link.  The priestess exhaled shakily, sinking to her knees in weary relieved shock, just as the bandit was reclaiming his feet.  Len went to disengage the binding spell, and found with only minimal surprise that it had dissipated quite some time ago.  He gathered the vestiges of energy left to him, not sparing the time to wonder when the bind had ended or why.  Standing, turning, a growing spell between his hands, he smiled at the oncoming monster that was leaping in his direction.  He could almost imagine a pair of bright blue eyes.

            "I'm saving us all, Jenny-doll," he murmured, raising his hands calmly and waiting for the right moment.  "Can you see it?"

            _Can you see me save you, now that it's too late?_

---~----~----~---

            "The hell is he doing?" Kyle grunted, reaching out for anything to support himself on – that last swat had nearly knocked him clueless.  He shook the tips of his glossy hair from his line of vision, squinting until the blur ran from his eyes, as it should since he is Kyle and he is Fierce.  The stupid mage had formed some sort of swirly spell between his hands, and he was just staring googly-eyed and smiley at the girl-lizard as it careened toward him with jaws wide open.

            "Suicide maneuver," he muttered, eyes widening slightly.  The idiot was going to let the creature overtake him and then release the spell as he died, too close to dodge and probably straight into it's mouth.

            Well, it wasn't _Kyle_ killing him, but at least he was going to get killed right?

            "_Len_!" Jessica screamed in futile warning, hands at her mouth and face filled with compassionate dread.

            Well, shit.

            The things he did for his woman.

            "Shoot!"  Kyle roared, launching himself straight at Len, rewarded with a blank and confused stare.  Incredible Bandit Inertia carried him directly into the mage, plowing both of them out of the path of slobberous jaws that only slammed shut on thin air, inches above the men.  "_Fire it, _you freaky eyed numbnut!" he bellowed, forcefully grabbing Len by the shoulders and manually pointing him and his glowing nimbus of whatever-the-hell at the oncoming beast.  

            Surprised, speechless, and manhandled, Len simply did what he'd been told, releasing the spell into the creature's face as it came back for another round.

            The explosion was massive.

            Kyle and Len both curled defensively as a shower of fire and scales and gooey bodily fluids flung about the room, the former bracing knowingly against the shockwave that the explosion would create, and the latter still too dumbfounded to bother, and practically blown across the room since Kyle really didn't care enough to grab at him.  Jessica crouched, pulling her hood up above her head and ducking into one of the craters, which provided quite a nice trench, really.

            When the dust settled, it was only the three of them, and a large, headless and lifeless serpentine body.  Slowly, stiffly, Kyle got to his feet, trying to brush the dirt and ichors off of him before just giving up on his state, stepping right over Len and moving to help Jessica up instead.  She peeked up at him from under the hem of her hood, exhausted, spent.  He held out his hand and she took it, pulling herself up with his assistance, and then finding with slight tired surprise that she didn't want to let go.  Unwilling to waste the energy on another mental debate, she simply held on.  Kyle did not protest.

            Len had finally regained his senses, sitting aside the smoking corpse that would never in even the smallest sense make anyone think of a teenage girl with blonde hair or blue eyes.  He was staring at it, somewhat sad and somewhat resigned, but mostly, Jessica thought, he mostly looked old.

            "We'd just entered town," he said quietly, more to the air than to his company, "and the man who runs the market remarked that he'd given his wife a puppy for a wedding present, and the puppy had run away just a night before.  'We'll fix this, Len', she said, as though it concerned us, as though it should matter at all.  Simply because some woman we'd never met was hurting.  It was all the excuse she ever needed."  He wiped his face on his sleeve, not noticing that his sleeve had been far nastier than his face to begin with.  "She thought that the dog might have gotten into the sewers, because we just couldn't find him anywhere else.  I didn't want to come down here… it felt wrong.  But she said we couldn't just half look.  We had to look everywhere if we were going to look at all.  'Here's my chance to show you, Len,' she said.  'You can do the right thing like you want to.  Didn't you say you wanted to save people?'"

            "Len," Jessica started softly.  "I'm sure that she-.."

            "She was a loving little idiot," the mage interrupted, standing suddenly and turning away from the mess.  "And it killed her.  Whether it was to help some stranger, or to find the puppy, or to teach me about being who and what I wanted to be, it killed her.  Jeni..." He cleared his throat, shook his head, and tried again.  "Jeni was all I ever had.  It is… it is just my foolish, desperate hope that I did what she would have wanted.  That she… that if she was still watching from within that thing, that she was proud.  She had no reason to be… but that's never stopped her before."  Len looked up to Jessica, pale yellow eyes tinted red with the force of repressed tears.  "I was never going to get her back, I realized.  And I couldn't let you die because I was being foolishly selfish."

            "It would have been nice to have that fragment," Kyle muttered, scratching the back of his head and looking away from the emotional outburst, somewhat because emotional men made him uncomfortable and half because he really wanted to hate the mage but it was turning more to pity.  Kyle preferred hate.

            "Why did you save me?" Len asked softly.  "You hate me."

            "Damn straight I do," the thief growled, releasing Jessica's hand to fold his arms over his chest.  "But you saved Jess, back there."

            "I also brought Jessica down here.  I put her in the danger in the first place."

            "Oh, hey, good point."  He raised his fist, ready to dispense pummeling action.

            "Kyle, don't you dare," the priestess warned from beside him, as he knew she would.  Grinning at her meekly, he set to cleaning his sword instead (in clear view of Len, so that the meaning could not be missed – these could be your guts I'm wiping off, pal.  You lucked out.)

            "Miss de Alkirk?"

            "What is it, Len?" Jessica replied with a slightly exasperated glance at Kyle, who's threatening gestures were so far removed from subtle it wasn't even funny.

            "Why did you merely stand there when the bind was gone?"

            She blinked, coloring slightly around the bridge of her nose.

            "Oh, you noticed that?"

            "I don't understand…"

            "Of course you don't," the short female snorted, tossing a few sections of hair over a shoulder.  "None of you men ever do."      

            A grunt hovered from her boyfriend.  She ignored it with a grin.

            "But why?" Len insisted.

            "Same reason I came here, remember?  I couldn't figure out if you were a person who needed to be healed or to be hit."

            He stood in stillness for a moment, absorbing that, tilting his head to the side and pursing his lips slightly.  Finally he nodded.

            "You were forcing my hand."

            "And hoping it would play the right sort of cards," Jessica confirmed.  

            "Stupid risk," Kyle huffed, sheathing his sword in a smooth movement and glaring at her in protective disapproval.  Jess merely shrugged at him, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

            "Then you shouldn't have taught me how to gamble," she said lightly, turning back to look at Len.  "The only way to help you heal was to make you choose what sort of person you were going to be by the end of the day: one who tried his utmost to do his best by himself and his family, even though there may have been tragedy, or someone who let another person be killed to hang on to a useless dream."

            "So then… I am a person who needed healing."  Len said it almost wonderingly.  Jessica had heard the tone before, from the mouths of people who believed themselves to be a waste of time.  Sometimes she almost agreed.

            "Well… of course, every so now and then you come across the rare sort of person who needs both," she informed casually.  

            "…Both?"

            "Healing, and that other option," Kyle filled in, his grin growing at an alarming rate, considering the almost feral way his teeth were gleaming.

            "The other…?"  Len asked faintly, just in time for Jessica to punch his lights out.  The mage crumpled, predictably having a glass jaw, and Kyle picked him up and slung him over a shoulder.

            "Well, that completes _my_ week," he declared, glancing around the area and frowning as the flicker of the magelight was cut off.  "Crap.  He cast that, didn't he."

            "I think I'm closer to the door, wait a second.  There were torches along the sewer walls."

            "You can't move that great big door!" Kyle scoffed, just as the creaking of a heavy oaken door echoed all around him.  Faint firelight illuminated the silhouette of the half-beastgirl as she eyed him from the doorway.

            "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," she graciously informed, "Because you've got so many brownie points at the moment and I don't feel like arguing."

            "The goddess smiles on me," he muttered, carefully making his way out of the ruins and back into the welcome filth of the sewers.

            "She does," Jessica confirmed.  "Now, between the both of us, Kyle… why did you _really_ save him?"

            "He's from Vane, right?" Kyle asked with a shrug, careful of the dead weight hanging over his shoulder.  "We'd have had to ship the body to Vane, and it'd be way too expensive.  Hell Mel would_ kill_ me."

            Muffled giggles rose from his girlfriend.  He looked downward at her archly.

            "I'm not kidding.  Your father scares the shit out of me, and it isn't all that funny."

            "That's not it," Jessica snickered, shaking her head.  "Vane kicked Len out for working outlawed spells.  We could have buried him anywhere."

            Kyle stopped dead, the look on his face almost a sulk that sent Jess into a further spiral of giggling.

            "Then why'd I bother?!  Can I just drop him in the waste?  He'd drown, you know, and we could just go and no one would even ask questions!"

            "You know we can't!" she laughed.

            "Plee~eease, Jess!"

            "Absolutely not!"

            "I'm gonna go get a girlfriend who lets me vent my frustrations," he teased, the sulk turning into a playful grin that only grew more delighted when the priestess smirked up at him.  Jessica was fun when she bickered, but much more fun when she played along.

            "You could never manage to keep away," she purred, adding a slight twitch to her hips as she continued down the walkway.  Eyebrows raised in appreciation, Kyle fell into step behind her, deciding to just silently enjoy the view.

            He couldn't argue with that.

---~-------~--------------~------------------~--------------------------~---------------------------~-------------~------

Very brief author's note, because most of them will be in the epilogue that should go up a few moments after this is posted.  If the format here is a little wonky, it's because the upgrade to Word I did is slightly psychotic, so rest assured if this looks like monkeys on crack did the formatting, I will find it and fix it.

Oh, and thanks for coming with me thus far.  I hope you're enjoying the ride.  Just one little thing left to read and you can go home. :D


	5. RRarrr! Ye be readin' yer epilogue!

            When Mel "Hell Mel" de Alkirk was one of the Four Heroes, he was renowned for several different things: his earsplitting battle roar, his headsplitting axe, and his absolutely inextinguishable determined spirit.  

            Decades later, Mel met his match.

            Paperwork.

            It piled and piled, with its tiny little lettering and silly legal clauses that he didn't fully understand.  (Meribia rule #5 – "Say what yer damned mean and say it fast!")  He had nightmares about being buried in falling towers of papers, drowning amidst legal depths, and by damnit if he got one more papercut this week he was going to outlaw filing.

            Luckily this latest paperwork was a source of pride.  He was tying up the loose ends about that town he'd sent his daughter and that no good rapscallion with the tan and the easy smile to.  All fatherly condemnation aside, he grudgingly admitted (under duress, he might add, and only because his Jessica was pleading him to be civil and he was just helpless when she pleaded) that the two worked well together, and maybe even looked good together.  They kept the costs down, too.

            With a bit of a snicker, he recalled fondly that his dear wife's father didn't really much like HIM when they'd started dating, but Mel sure won him over swiftly enough (it had been easy, actually, his wife-girlfriend-at-the-time had just insisted that he leave it all to her, and a few puppyeyes later he was in good with the old man.  Ingenious, women!)

            "Bah," he rumbled, stamping the file so that it was now emblazoned with a bright scarlet 'Hell Mel says OK!' and tossing it onto the sadly small stack of finished things.  "Keep yerself lookin' on the bright side, Mel.  Y'always wanted a son, an' there's no need to let the boy know he's grown on ye.  They always keep in line a wee bit more if ye keep em afraid for their heads!  RRAAHAHAHAHH!"

            As always, the city shivered.

---~----~----~---

            " 'So with that out of the way, I would like to thank you for your heavy-handedness before, for the effect such discipline will now have in my own self-rehabilitation,'" Mia read to Nash, both of them bent over the letter they'd received just a day before from an ex-student.  " 'My regards to both Miss de Alkirk and Mr. Of Nanza (he never gave me a last name), since I believe you keep in touch with them both.  Perhaps in the future I will reapply for your magic school.  I am hearing only good things about its progress, and it may yet prove to be along the path to the person I have decided I want to be.  Respectfully, Len Destine.'"

            "Did I know him?" Nash asked, scratching at his chin curiously.  "I don't really remember him."

            "That's because you never pay enough attention to the students," Mia admonished gently.  "Though Len _was_ very introverted.  I'm a little worried about that fragment he mentioned, though…"

            "He destroyed it, didn't he?  He said he did."

            "Even if he did, Nash, it was a fragment of something.  That means there are more pieces, and if each of them create a disturbance similar to this one…"  She let the statement trail meaningfully.  Her companion nodded.

            "I getcha.  You know," he drawled thoughtfully, leaning against the large table of the office, "I think some of the older scrolls mention occurrences like this.  They're rare, but it's kind of nagging me that I've read something like this before."

            "Well, then, let's get studying," the young sorceress announced with a smile, rolling up her voluminous purple sleeves.  "If there's another adventure coming, we're going to have to be ready."

            "I don't know if it'll come to _that_ exactly…"

            "You said it yourself, Nash," Mia pointed out impishly.  "If it was a fragment, then there are bound to be other pieces.  And beside that, a fragment of _what_?  No, there's definitely an adventure behind this one.  Looks like the vacation's over."

            "We were on vacation?" the spellcaster asked dryly, glancing at the stack of work to be done, the papers to be sorted, and out the window at the buildings that needed construction and paint.  

            "If you're going to be the new Premier someday, you're going to have to be a little more enthusiastic," his girlfriend chastised as she lead him out of the room by the hand.

            "Won't Egotistical suffice?" he asked plaintatively.

            Mia smiled, and for her answer pulled them both into the library.

---~----~----~---

            "So we agree, then, that there must be more of these fragments scattered around, and that it's a probability each has a bit of presence or residual magic to them that might end up being a danger to people," Nall summarized from his seat in the middle of the round table.  Jessica and Alex both nodded, Kyle grunted, and Luna tapped a fingernail onto the wood thoughtfully.  Jess raised an eyebrow, wondering what the young blue-haired teen had to say, not that the once-goddess had been particularly forthcoming with answers.  She and Kyle had arrived home in Meribia to find all of Alex, Luna, and Nall practically on the doorstep, with no why they'd come or how'd they'd known.  All things considered, Jessica supposed she shouldn't have bothered to ask.  If Althena wants to visit, then Althena does so.  Especially when she's one of your best friends.

            "Something has to be done," Alex sighed, steepling his hands together in front of his face.  "We can't let this … whatever it is… run rampant."

            "Honestly, I'm glad you guys are up to this," Jess sighed.  "We just need to send a missive over to Vane to see what Nash and Mia think.  I really wasn't looking forward to Kyle and I tackling this alone."

            "So the sleuthing team survives, eh?" Nall noted with a yawn, inclining his head toward the bandit and the priestess.  "No more fights?  A truce on the battlefield?  I never thought I'd see the day."

            "Oh, we'll still argue up storms, and cheerfully," Jessica chirped, punching Kyle on the arm playfully.  

            "Why?" Alex asked with a blink.  "Didn't you talk it over?"

            "Of course we did," she snorted, because they had, over the course of several long nights on the way back to Meribia.  Over cups of tea and coffee and water, they'd talked all about trust and fear and denial and love and acceptance, and once about sandwiches, but mainly about how maybe the road to happiness was long and dusty, but that was okay in the long run.  Jess had admitted that all of the men in the world weren't out to steal her independence, and Kyle had admitted that the worst thing in the world would be to see her hurt, and he couldn't help but act on that feeling.  Overall the verdict was they needed work, but it was worth the effort.

            "Fighting is just a part of how they interact," Luna said with a shrug.  "It's part of the package."

            "Bickering spices things up," Jessica added, grinning at the songstress.

            "And the most important thing," Kyle spoke up with a sly grin.  Alex and Nall exchanged an almost wary look while Luna giggled into her hands and Jessica snickered.

            "… is?" Nall finally prompted.  The warrior thief grinned wider and leaned across the table as though to deliver some secret of dreadful import.

            "Making up," he said, "is just so damned fun."

-------~--------------~-----------------~------------~-------------------~----------~------

Tired author's notes:

YAY!  It took me about two and half to three years, but I can finally take this off my "not done" list.  Because it's DONE.  Unfortunately, as you probably noticed, the story kind of wrote itself wide open for sequels.  Stupid story.  I didn't mean for that to happen, honest to god I didn't, because as long as this took I might end up writing Lunar fanfiction until I'm old and grey… greyer.  I think the ending here was a little corny but I had to make the title (which I pulled out of thin air the first time I posted to FF.net) make some sort of sense.  Another thing I noticed was how much the style changed throughout chapters.  1 and 2 were done relatively within the same time frame, about two and a half years ago, and 3 was about 9 months ago, and now I'm seeing that chapter 4 is … less humor?  Though the Lunar games weren't all shits and giggles during the climax, either.  I dunno.  I just hope that I've still got the characters right.  Let me know, eh?  I thrive on feedback.

Incidently, if you'd read all the way thus far, you are very brave and dedicated, and I don't deserve such lavish attention. ^^  Thanks for it, though.  And everyone who's reviewed thus far, the only reason this story got finished _at all_ is because you wanted it to.  I couldn't leave it left undone if I knew people liked it.  Miracle of miracles… some people did.  :D  Peace and love, all.


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